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presented  to  the 

LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  •  SAN  DIEGO 

by 
FRIENDS  OF  THE  LIBRARY 

Ward  L.  Thornton 


LETTERS    FROM 
G.   G. 


"I  so  love  life,  for  the  sake  of  life, 

And  breath  for  the  love  of  breath, 
A  song  for  the  splendid  sake  of  song, 
A  word  for  what  it  saith. 

"For  no  far  end,  no  gain,  no  pleasure, 

Nor  good  that  comes  thereof : 
But  measured  words  just  for  worded 

measure 
I  love— for  the  sake  of  love." 


NEW    YORK 

HENRY    HOLT    AND    COMPANY 
1909 


COPYRIGHT,  1909 

BY 
HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 

Published  October,  1909 


LETTERS    FROM    G.   G. 

PROLOGUE 

THERE  was  a  Nice  Girl  who  once  spent  a 
winter  in  Paris  at  a  pension,  and  next  her  at 
table  chanced  to  sit  a  Youth.  He  was  a  very 
Superior  Person,  very  positive,  very  toplofty, 
and  he  had  some  excuse,  for  he  was  Unus- 
ually Intelligent. 

One  day  he  undertook  to  snub  the  Girl — 
that  is,  he  contradicted  her,  and  treated  her 
in  general  as  if  she  were  a  part  of  the  pattern 
of  the  wall-paper. 

The  Girl  was  unused  to  that  sort  of  thing, 
and  was  breathless  with  surprise.  People 
were  not  given  to  snubbing  her,  partly  because 
she  was  so  Very  Nice,  and  also  because  she 
had  a  tongue  which  could  be  sharp  on  occa- 
sion. 

i 


2  Letters  from  G.  G. 

She  reasoned  the  case  with  herself:  One 
of  two  things  must  happen — either  she  must 
sit  upon  that  Young  Man  so  hard  that  he 
would  never  recover,  or  she  must  be  so  nice 
that  he  would  never  do  it  again. 

Either  alternative  was  easy,  but  one  was  a 
little  the  more  agreeable,  so  she  gulped  hard, 
and  was  nice  for  two  whole  weeks,  to  very 
good  effect,  for  the  night  before  the  Youth 
left  Paris  he  spent  the  entire  evening  telling 
her  how  very  much  he  liked  her. 

By  that  time  the  Girl  had  discovered  that 
he  was  quite  exceptionally  amusing,  and  they 
agreed  that  though  here  their  paths  diverged, 
yet  they  would  not  entirely  lose  track  of  each 
other — that  is,  they  would  write. 

They  wrote  at  intervals  more  or  less  short 
for  two  years.  Then  the  opportunity  offered 
of  their  meeting  again.  But  meanwhile  they 
had  grown  such  good  friends  on  paper  that 
they  decided  that  a  renewal  of  personal  ac- 
quaintance would  be  a  risk.  Their  letters  were 
so  eminently  satisfactory  that  they  doubted 


Letters  from  G.  G.  3 

whether  they  would  find  each  other  as  entirely 
delightful,  and  thought  it  wisest  to  let  well 
alone. 

More  years  passed,  making  them  only  better 
friends.  They  had  almost  forgotten  one  an- 
other as  real  people,  and  each  thought  of  the 
other  as  a  friendly  Myth  or  Shadow  from 
whom  it  was  good  to  hear,  and  to  whom  it  was 
very  pleasant  to  give  all  one's  real  opinions 
about  things. 

They  wrote  ...  of  what  did  they  not 
write?  They  wrote  of  Love  and  Life  and 
Death;  of  Dogs,  of  themselves,  and  one  an- 
other; of  Mice  and  Men  and  Modern  In- 
stances ;  of  trifles  light  as  air ;  of  all  that  one 
does  and  hears  in  the  course  of  the  day's  work, 
and  hands  on  because  it  means  a  laugh  or  a 
tear ;  of  all  that  goes  to  make  people  and  their 
lives. 

They  reveled  in  the  rarity  of  a  friendship 
which  seemed  like  to  become  lifelong,  based 
on  letters  alone — barring  the  two  little  weeks 
of  their  knowledge  of  each  other  face  to  face. 


4  Letters  from  G.  G. 

They  enjoyed  the  Game,  and  agreed  that  to 
meet  again  in  the  light  of  common  day  would 
be  stupid  and  obvious  and  commonplace. 

And  so  they  wrote  until  .  .  .  but  you 
shall  read.  Don't  be  alarmed  .  .  .  not 
until  they  died.  They  are  still  alive  and  writ- 
ing. 


LETTERS   FROM    G.    G. 

FROM  G.  G.  IN  PARIS,  TO  R.  F.  IN  NAPLES. 

Spring. 

I  am  not,  as  you  suggest,  "of  those  who 
make  promises  but  to  break  them,"  and  I  pro- 
pose to  make  you  very  sorry  for  your  intima- 
tion of  lack  of  good  faith  on  my  part.  Shortly 
after  you  left  Paris  I  fell  ill — very,  very,  very 
ill.  I  am  at  this  moment  propped  up  in 
bed,  making  a  special  and  uncomfortable 
effort.  Writing  sick  abed  isn't  a  bit  of  fun. 
But  you  say  you  are  sailing  for  home  by  the 
end  of  the  week,  so  if  word  is  to  reach  you  in 
Naples  at  all,  it  must  go  now,  or  you  will  go 
to  your  grave  thinking  me  faithless,  for  I 
don't  believe  you  would  bend  your  proud  pen 
to  writing  a  third  time  in  the  teeth  of  silence. 

It  seems  long  ago  that  we  were  neigh- 
bors at  table  for  those  two  good  weeks 
5 


6  Letters  from  G.  G. 

at  the  pension;  that  we  heard  music  together 
(weren't  those  good  performances  of  Fidelio 
and  Boheme  at  the  Comique ! )  ;  that  we 
danced  and  discussed  and  walked  and  saw 
pictures.  Even  then  I  was  a  bit  shaky.  I 
wondered  at  times  if  I  should  weather  the  sea- 
son safely,  the  chill  of  Paris  winter  struck  so 
at  the  marrow  of  me.  How  I  do  hate  cold! 
And  the  jaunt  across  the  river  to  the  atelier 
every  morning,  at  misty  peep  o'  day,  to  be  on 
time  for  my  criticism  was  a  pretty  wearing 
business,  that,  and  the  feverishly  hard  work. 
I  wanted  to  do  so  much  in  the  time  I  had. 

Well,  you  left  !in  February,  didn't  you? 
Middle  of  March  I  went  to  pieces — grippe, 
pneumonia,  general  smash.  It  wasn't  nice. 
I  almost  went  mad  at  the  pension.  There 
was  a  girl  in  the  next  room  who  sang  the  most 
heartrending  exercises,  and  tramped  about  her 
bare  floor  industriously  in  calfskin  boots. 
My  doctor — the  dear  Lord  bless  him! — saw 
that  if  I  didn't  die  of  what  ailed  me,  I'd  go  to 
a  lunatic  asylum  before  he  could  get  me  well. 


Letters  from  G.  G.  7 

So  one  day  he  came  with  a  rubber-tired  cab, 
had  me  packed  in  oiled  silk  and  blankets  and 
hot-water  bottles,  and  took  me  to  his  mother's 
house.  This  mother  was  one  of  my  mother's 
oldest  and  dearest  friends,  and  when  we  were 
youngsters,  he  such  a  thoughtful,  kind  boy 
and  I  a  toddler,  we  played  about  in  the  Tuil- 
eries  and  Champs  Elysees  together  with  our 
bonnes.  And  his  dear  mother  has  taken  me 
in  and  done  for  me  what  my  mother  would 
have  done  for  him  had  the  situation  been  re- 
versed. 

I  was  horribly  ill,  but  I'm  getting  well,  and 
when  it  is  all  over  there  will  be  much  that  is 
lovely  to  remember.  The  dear  kindness  of 
these  sweet  people — for  it  is  no  joke  having  a 
sick  girl  suddenly  plumped  down  into  one's 
quiet,  well-regulated  household. 

Good-by.  I  envy  you  so  soon  to  be  on 
your  way  home.  Greet  it  for  me.  Greet 
home.  Greet  me  America.  Greet  me  Mile. 
Liberte  in  the  harbor.  Greet  me  New  York. 

G.  G. 


8  Letters  from  G.  G. 

FROM  G.  G.  IN  PARIS,  TO  R.  F.  AT  HOME  IN  A 
CHICAGO  SUBURB. 

Spring. 

You  see,  I'm  still  here,  but  it  is  Italy  next 
week.  Convalescence  is  mighty  pleasant. 
When,  except  after  an  illness,  can  one  hope  to 
feel  so  babyishly  irresponsible?  Kitty  (one  of 
my  sisters  who  was  sent  for)  does  everything 
but  breathe  for  me.  I  wish  she  could  manage 
to  do  that,  for  I  don't  yet  find  it  perfectly 
comfortable  to  do  for  myself.  She  thinks 
and  acts  and  speaks  for  me.  I  am  ashamed 
making  her  all  this  fuss  and  worry,  coming 
over  here  to  nurse  me  well,  but  it  is  such  bliss 
having  her  around  with  nothing  but  me  to  oc- 
cupy her  mind  and  person.  It  makes  me 
think  of  a  verse  of  hers: 


To  be  a  little  child  once  more, 
And  in  its  dreamless  cradle  lie, 

And  hear  a  soft  voice  o'er  and  o'er 
Refraining:  "Bylow,  baby — bye." 


Letters  from  G.  G. 

To  be  a  child,  be  innocence 

Of  all  that  hath  man's  heart  beguiled, 
Yet  know  by  some  mysterious  sense, 

How  good   it  is  to  be  a  child! 


That  is  it — after  a  great  big  illness  it  is  like 
being  a  child,  yet  realizing,  which  one  doesn't 
as  a  child,  the  fun  that  it  is. 

And  then,  after  being  very  ill,  one  makes  a 
fresh  start.  All  the  troublesome  things  of  be- 
fore are  washed  away,  or  sink  back  into  their 
proper  perspective.  I  don't  suppose  you  sus- 
pected while  we  so  gaily  chattered  in  those 
days  that  I  was  mightily  bothered  about 
things.  So  little  does  one  know  what  goes  on 
under  one's  neighbor's  blond  hair. 

Well,  I  feel  strangely  shut  of  it  all  now,  and 
troubled  conscience  and  sorriness  for  myself 
have  all  melted  and  floated  away.  I  find  it 
painfully  easy  to  laugh.  You  might,  for  in- 
stance, not  be  accustomed  to  thinking  of  Tho- 
reau  as  a  humorous  writer,  but  Kitty  had  to 
stop  in  the  middle  of  reading  Walden  aloud 
to  me ;  we  went  into  such  gales  over  it  that  my 


io  Letters  from  G.  G. 

ridiculous,  incompetent  lungs  couldn't  stand 
the  shaking  up.  I  was  sent  into  such  spasms 
of  coughing  that  it  didn't  do. 

It's  all  right  chanting  the  delights  of  con- 
valescence, but  it's  slow — so  slow! — and  I 
want  to  be  well  now!  G.  G. 

FROM  G.  G.  AT  MONTORO,  NEAR  FLORENCE. 
TO  R.  F.  AT  HOME. 

Summer. 

You  were  in  Florence  so  lately  that  it  is  use- 
less to  rave  to  you  about  the  place,  to  pile  su- 
perlative upon  superlative.  But  isn't  it  the 
dearest  ever? 

I've  not  been  back  since  I  was  a  child  here 
in  boarding-school  and  it's  amazing  how  well 
I  remember  it  all.  I  could  find  my  way  about 
blindfold,  only  it  all  looked  so  big  and  spacious 
to  my  child  eyes,  and  how  tiny  it  really  is! 
One  can  put  a  girdle  around  the  city  in  twenty 
minutes  in  a  cab,  and  cab-horses  aren't  racers 
in  this  country,  as  you  know — poor  dears ! 

While  you  were  here,  did  you  come  out  in 


Letters  from  G.  G.  11 

this  direction?  Did  you  hear  of  the  Villa 
Montoro?  I  believe  it  is  the  most  beauti- 
ful place  in  the  world.  Italy  is  indisputably 
the  most  adorable  country  on  earth,  Florence 
its  fairest  city,  and  Montoro  avowedly  the 
loveliest  villa  in  Tuscany !  .  .  .  ! 

There  is  a  view  from  the  end  of  the  bowling 
green  .  .  .  But  what's  the  use?  It  is  so 
perfect  that  you  can  pick  out  no  special  fea- 
ture to  describe.  Down  there  in  the  valley 
lies  Florence,  sun-saturated  in  a  baby-blue 
haze,  the  Duomo  rising  waist  high  above  the 
houses,  and  all  about  misty  stretches  of  hill 
and  valley,  gray-green  of  olive  orchards,  ac- 
centuated with  rows  of  black  cypress  and 
dotted  with  creamy  villas  and  peasant  houses 
with  pinky-red  tiled  roofs.  The  whole  so  un- 
consciously right,  as  right  as  a  daisy  field. 

But  soon  we  shall  be  leaving  this  paradise 
and  the  enchanted  life  here  for  home,  and  I'm 
not  sorry,  though  I  don't  mean  by  that  to  be 
ungrateful  to  our  lovely  hostess.  But  I'd 
rather  be  at  home  than  in  heaven  any  day, 


12  Letters  from  G.  G. 

wouldn't  you?  Aren't  you  glad  you  are  at 
home  ?  You  don't  seem  glad  enough,  yet  your 
new  quarters  sound  mighty  attractive.  The 
study  you  are  building  sounds  a  comfy  lit- 
tle hole.  How  glorious  to  be  able  to  do  things 
on  such  a  gorgeous  scale! 

You  don't  seem  to  dote  on  your  avocation 
of  grain  merchant,  yet  I  should  judge  it  had 
its  compensations,  when  it  enables  one  to  line 
one's  nest  with  Rodin  statuary  and  Besnard 
pictures.  It  gave  me  a  shock  to  hear  you 
were  on  the  Board  of  Trade.  I  never  sus- 
pected it.  How  did  I  escape  finding  out  ?  You 
seemed  to  me  a  dilettante  pure  and  simple,  not 
a  bit  of  a  business  man;  you  knew  too  much 
about  the  arts.  I  was  in  your  city  once  and 
was  taken  to  look  into  the  Pit.  I  can't  place 
you  there.  Do  you  behave  as  much  like  a  rag- 
ing maniac  as  the  rest  of  them?  I'd  give  ten 
cents  to  see  you  there  with  your  nice,  smooth 
hair  all  mussed  up  and  your  nice,  smooth,  cor- 
rect person  and  bearing  as  mussy  as  your  hair. 

Good-by.  G.  G. 


Letters  from  G.  G.  13 

FROM  G.  G.  AT  HOME  IN  A  NEW  ENGLAND 
VILLAGE,  TO  R.  F.  AT  HOME. 

Summer. 

I  know  you'll  think  it  perverse  of  me  to  be 
glad  to  be  here,  in  a  scrubby  New  England 
village,  with  my  own  flesh  and  blood  and  bull- 
dog, after  visiting  in  an  enchanted  villa  in 
Italy  with  "the  Quality";  there  is  a  decided 
flavor  of  court  about  Montoro,  a  beautiful 
high  decorum,  a  serene  order  and  stateliness. 
Everything,  every  detail  of  the  life  and  its 
setting  is  ravishingly  beautiful,  and  I  feel 
while  there  as  if  I  were  treading  among  the 
stars,  up  in  the  Milky  Way,  and  I  dote  on  it ; 
but  .  .  .  what  would  you?  I'm  clay,  and 
here  in  this  little  old  gray-shingled  house  with 
the  green  door  I  find  life,  if  not  so  wonderful, 
yet  very  sweet  to  live.  It's  like  getting  back 
to  one's  worn  old  bed  slippers  after  floating 
about  in  Mercury's  winged  sandals. 

We  had  a  nice  journey  home.  We  came  on 
the  Trojan  Prince  from  Leghorn.  Stopped 
a  couple  of  days  in  Genoa.  There  was  a 


14  Letters  from  G.  G. 

church  show  going  on  there.  The  harbor  was 
being  blessed.  There  were  barges  filled  with 
high  church  dignitaries  in  superb  togs  filing 
around  among  the  warships  and  merchant 
craft.  The  barges  were  decked  out  like  things 
in  pictures  or  on  the  stage,  with  velvet  awn- 
ings and  gold  fringes  and  embroidery  and 
flowery  festoons,  and  there  were  draperies  and 
scarfs  in  melting  colors,  trailing  deliciously 
over  the  sides  in  the  water. 

That  always  seems  the  last  touch  in  glorious 
extravagance  and  delights  one  of  me,  while  it 
distresses  the  other. 

Then  the  boat  took  us  to  Girgenti  in  the 
south  of  Sicily  to  pick  up  a  cargo  of  sulphur. 
We  had  two  days  there,  though  it  seems  a 
dream,  it  was  so  incredibly  lovely.  I  believe 
I've  seen  temples  now  to  rival  yours  in  Paes- 
tum.  Temples  made  of  gold-colored  crum- 
bling stone,  seen  against  a  sea  of  chrysoprase, 
with  an  amethyst  sky  above,  turning  to  tur- 
quoise overhead.  And  Girgenti  itself?  I'm 
convinced  I've  seen  Greece  and  Spain  and  the 


Letters  from  G.  G.  15 

Orient  now.  I'm  sure  that  town  on  its  high 
crag  is  a  composite  of  the  three. 

Then  to  Naples,  and  we  had  a  day  at  Pom- 
peii. We  had  a  beautiful  young  guide  to 
show  us  about  the  place,  and  I  must  tell  you 
about  that  guide — it's  too  good  to  keep.  He 
was  young  and  beautiful — as  beautiful  .  .  . 
well,  as  beautiful  as  a  young  Neapolitan  guide. 
How  do  they  manage  it,  the  men  there  ?  They 
look  like  lovely  animals,  or  ripe  fruit,  and  as 
unconscious.  The  women,  on  the  other  hand, 
are  deadly.  All  you  are  aware  of  as  you  look 
at  them  is  a  desire  to  catch  them  and  scrub 
them,  shampoo  their  hair,  and  clap  them  into 
some  proper  stays,  and  tell  them  to  sit  up.  I'm 
speaking  of  the  bourgeoises,  not  the  peasants. 

But  about  our  guide.  He  looked  like  a 
young  emperor,  as  grave  and  lofty  and  sweetly 
dignified.  When  we  had  quite  done  the 
rounds  of  the  sights  he  stopped,  and  leveling 
his  impersonal  gaze  upon  us:  "And  now, 
ladies,  remains  but  to  ask  whether  you  prefer 
to  depart  with  sweet  memory  of  our  beautiful 


1 6  Letters  from  G.  G. 

Pompeii  or  whether  you  would  wish  to  be 
shown  some  obscene  paintings  ?" 

If  you  knew  Kitty  you'd  know  how  funny 
this  is.  She  has  the  dearest,  clear  gray  eyes 
in  the  world.  She  returned  his  sober  gaze 
and  answered  without  a  quiver  that  he  was 
very  kind,  but  we  preferred  to  see  nothing 
further. 

Then  we  lagged  behind,  and  when  we  were 
hidden  from  view  behind  the  angle  of  a  build- 
ing we  fell  upon  each  other's  necks  in  a  long, 
limp  giggle.  That  question,  to  us,  the  un- 
mistakable, the  just-as-far-as-you-can-see- 
them  New  England  spinsters! 

After  Naples  we  stopped  nowhere  until  we 
landed  in  New  York,  and  it  took  eighteen 
days.  So  the  whole  trip  was  a  good  month  in 
perfect  weather. 

I  had  bought  an  old  copy  of  Dante  in  three 
volumes  for  a  franc  in  Genoa,  and  that  was 
my  'board-ship  reading,  that  and  Mr.  Dooley. 
Percy  Atherton  gave  him  to  me  before  I  left 
Paris,  and  I  shall  always  bless  him  for  the  in- 


Letters  from  G.  G.  17 

troduction.  And  then  I  learned  by  heart  a 
score  or  more  of  the  sonnets  of  the  House  of 
Life.  I  shall  forget  them  in  the  main,  I  sup- 
pose, but  never  quite. 

There  were  only  eleven  cabin  passengers 
aboard,  but  hundreds  of  steerage,  who  kept  us 
from  being  dull.  They  were  a  continuous 
show.  All  we  needed  do  was  to  lean  over  the 
rail  of  our  high  deck  and  look  down  upon 
comedy  and  drama,  with  occasional  sugges- 
tions of  tragedy.  There  was  a  girl,  and  we 
found  out  her  name,  ominously  enough,  was 
Carmela,  and  I  miss  my  guess  if  she  does  not 
end  her  career  with  a  stiletto  in  her  back. 

I'm  afraid — yes,  I'm  very  much  afraid — I 
sympathize  with  what  you  confess  is  your 
ideal  of  bliss — to  do  nothing  and  have  no  de- 
sire to  do  anything.  No  wonder,  if  that's 
your  frame  of  mind,  you  don't  love  your  trade 
of  buying  and  selling.  I  don't  love  my  paint- 
ing trade  either,  I'll  confess  to  you.  Not  be- 
cause I  don't  love  art;  I  do,  and  that's  why  I 
don't  enjoy  the  things  I  perpetrate.  You  who 


1 8  Letters  from  G.  G. 

have  never  seen  any  of  them  have  no  idea  how 
bad  they  are.  When  I  have  painted  a  mem- 
ber of  any  household  I  frequent,  I  feel  the 
house  closed  to  me  forever — I  can't  bear  to 
be  faced  by  my  objectionable  creations. 
Funny,  too !  for  in  the  art  school  I  was  rather 
a  prize  pupil,  snatched  scholarships,  and 
was  especially  petted  and  made  of.  But  when 
I  came  to  do  it  for  money,  that  queered  it  all, 
and  I've  never  worked  freely  since. 

How  often  poor  Manon  Lescaut's  cry  has 
rung  in  my  heart:  "Oh!  qu'il  serait  amusant, 
de  s'amuser  toute  la  vie!"  Or  even  if  there 
were  no  question  of  amusing  oneself,  just  to 
do  nothing — nothing  f'rever,  'n  ever,  'n  ever. 
Just  to  lie  in  the  sun,  the  blessed,  democratic 
sun.  Why,  Romney  Flagg,  if  I  had  an  in- 
come the  size  of  the  point  of  a  needle,  sup- 
pose I'd  ever  do  a  stroke  of  painting  or  work 
of  any  sort  again  in  this  life  ?  Catch  me ! 

But  now  let  me  warn  you  right  here:  this 
is  Gladys  Gay,  the  Bohemian  talking  to  you. 
Next  week,  or  to-morrow,  or  three  minutes 


Letters  from  G.  G.  19 

hence,  Gladys  Gay,  the  Puritan  may  address 
you,  saying:  Work,  work,  work,  for  it  is  the 
only  blessing,  the  only  thing  that  is  worth 
while,  the  only  thing  that  earns  you  standing- 
room,  the  only  real  service,  and  hence  the  only 
road  to  peace  and  happiness. 

Good-by.  G.  G. 

G.  G.  AT  HOME,  R.  F.  AT  HOME. 

Autumn. 

You  like  the  sound  of  my  house?  Yes,  I 
believe  you  would  if  you  saw  it,  too;  people 
do.  And  there  is  something  very  endearing 
about  the  Cape.  Of  course,  it  is  sometimes 
called  nothing  but  a  sand  heap  sparsely  cov- 
ered with  scrub  oak  and  pine,  and  there  is 
some  truth  in  that,  I'm  bound  to  admit.  It  is 
sandy  and  ragged  and  mosquitoey,  but  the 
stunted  trees  leave  one  all  the  clearer,  freer, 
bigger  hemisphere  of  sky,  and  such  a  splendid 
big  wind  sweeps  across  it  constantly.  The  air 
is  so  clean,  it  is  like  being  out  at  sea  all  the 
time. 


2O  Letters  from  G.  G. 

And  then  the  long,  low  line  of  the  marshes. 
There  is  a  homeliness,  a  humility  in  the  land- 
scape that  makes  it  most  lovable,  and  the  tiny 
cottages  seem  the  human  expression  of  the 
landscape,  the  little  oxydized-silver  houses, 
snuggled  down  low,  hugging  the  ground,  like 
the  gray  rocks  in  the  pastures. 

You  want  to  hear  more  ?  Why,  there  is  not 
much  more  to  tell,  except  that  it  is  a  great, 
good  thing  to  have  a  house  of  one's  own. 
When  Alice  Hayes  heard  that  we  thought  of 
buying  one,  when  we  were  leaving  our  old 
home,  she  urged  so  feelingly :  "Oh,  do  take  it ! 
Do!  Have  a  place  of  your  own,  be  indepen- 
dent of  visits!  People  are  always  so  shy  of 
inviting  folks  who  have  no  home  to  go  to 
after.  They  always  have  the  question  in  the 
back  of  their  minds:  'I  wonder  has  she  any 
plans  after  her  two  weeks  here  are  over?  I 
wonder  where  she'll  go  when  she  leaves 
here?'" 

Them  as  has,  gits !  Rather  cynical  view  of 
the  hospitable,  but  Miss  Hayes  assured  me  a 


Letters  from  G.  G.  21 

true  one — alas,  to  justify  which,  people  will 
quote  instances  of  homeless  guests  invited  for 
ten  days  remaining  fourteen  years! 

I  must  be  sending  you  a  picture  of  the 
house,  and  I  want  you  to  take  special  note  of 
the  front  porch,  for  that  is  the  Porch  that 
Oliver  Built. 

The  first  year  we  were  here  Oliver  spent 
several  weeks  at  an  inn  hard  by.  He  spent 
his  days  with  us,  and  made  himself  useful, 
helping  settle,  unpack  books  and  china,  and 
washing  the  "images,"  as  Arlie  called  the 
bric-a-brac.  A  friend  came  to  spend  a  few 
days  with  him  about  Labor  Day.  The  two 
hired  a  canoe,  and  were  enthusiastic  over  pad- 
dling about  the  river.  I  was  awakened  Labor 
Day  morning  by  a  mighty  sound  of  thumping, 
sawing  and  discussion  in  the  yard.  When  I 
came  down  I  looked  out  of  the  back  door,  and 
saw  Oliver  and  Geoffrey  bustling  about.  I 
asked  whatever  was  up?  Oliver  said  that  as 
they  had  no  paddle  for  the  canoe  it  seemed 
rather  necessary  to  make  one. 


22  Letters  from  G.  G. 

"Is  that  all?  I  thought  from  the  catouse 
you  were  making  you  were  building  on  an  ex- 
tension to  the  house,  or  at  least  a  front  porch." 

At  that,  what  Thomas  Hardy  calls  a  "deedy 
look"  came  into  Oliver's  eye,  and  no  more 
labor  was  wasted  on  the  paddle — it  was 
dropped  and  forgotten  along  with  the  canoe. 
He  trotted  off  and  collected  cedar  rails  all 
over  town,  and  by  night  there  was  a  fair  start 
toward  a  rustic  porch.  Geoffrey  went  away 
next  day,  but  Oliver  worked  on  alone  for  two 
mortal  weeks;  it  was  all  you  could  do  to  get 
him  in  to  meals. 

And,  you  know,  only  a  true  artist  could 
ever  have  made  anything  so  pretty,  so  right  in 
every  line  and  proportion,  so  strong,  so  grace- 
ful, so  complete.  It  gives  the  house  such  in- 
dividuality and  distinction.  The  little  seats 
at  the  sides  are  just  the  right  height  and 
depth,  the  roof  has  just  the  right  angle.  It  is 
a  dear  porch,  and  it  is  all  smothered  in  trum- 
pet vine  now. 

Some  one,  seeing  it  when  it  was  first  fin- 


Letters  from  G.  G.  23 

ished,  turned  in  astonishment  to  Oliver: 
"Whoever  would  have  thought  you  were  such 
a  carpenter?"  "Why,  didn't  you  know,"  said 
Oliver,  "I  did  all  the  rustic  work  on  the  Wal- 
dorf-Astoria ?" 

No,  there  is  little  further  to  tell  you  about 
the  house  except  that  it  seems  the  place  where 
every  one  in  town  has  lived  at  some  time. 
Half  the  population  of  the  village  appear  to 
have  been  born  in  the  southwest  chamber,  or 
their  grandmothers  died  there,  or  their  Aunt 
Jemimas  set  up  housekeeping  here  when  they 
were  married.  It  seems  to  have  had  a  varied 
career.  I  wonder  what  the  ghosts  of  past  in- 
mates think  of  it  now,  with  its  concert  grand 
piano,  and  Venetian  mirrors,  and  Florentine 
tapestries,  and  Bokhara  rugs,  and  all  Mother's 
dear  belongings? 

People  ask  us  if  we  are  not  afraid  of  leav- 
ing the  house  alone  over  winters.  Afraid? 
Why,  the  natives  wouldn't  steal.  There 
are  no  tramps  ;  this  is  a  respectable  com- 
munity, and  if  there  were  tramps  they'd 


24  Letters  from  G.  G. 

heaps  rather  have  nice  fresh-colored  chromos 
than  any  of  our  dim  paintings.  What  would 
they  do  with  photographs  of  Botticelli  Ma- 
donnas and  saints?  As  for  the  books,  much 
use  they'd  have  for  them !  Then  the  rugs — no 
one  would  give  them  house  room.  Faded, 
rather  threadbare,  rather  ragged — I  dare  say 
they'd  wonder  we  litter  the  place  up  with  them. 
And  Ginori  porcelain,  I'll  engage,  is  not  suf- 
ficiently durable-looking  to  tempt  them. 

I  could  tell  you  a  lot  about  the  natives,  but 
it's  bedtime,  and  they'll  keep,  as  they  are  the 
salt  of  the  earth.  G.  G. 


G.  G.  AT  HOME,  TO  R.  F.  AT  HOME. 

Autumn. 

You  can  no  more  place  me  in  a  little  gray 
cottage  on  the  New  England  coast  than  I  can 
you  in  the  Wheat  Pit?  Believe  me,  I  very 
much  belong  here ;  I  belong  here  as  much  as 
in  the  Louvre,  or  the  Italian  garden  o'  dreams, 
or  little  old  Broadway. 


Letters  from  G.  G.  25 

You  want  to  hear  more  about  our  place  and 
our  ways  of  life? 

It's  a  tiny  house,  plenty  of  room  in  it  for 
four  guests,  but  none  for  a  servant.  Kitty 
and  I  are  the  servants,  and  you've  no  idea  how 
deliciously  clear  and  fresh  the  atmosphere  of 
a  servantless  house  is !  The  house  is  so  small 
we  couldn't  have  a  domestic  forever  around 
under  our  feet.  Besides,  no  servant  would  put 
up  with  a  kitchen  no  bigger  than  a  postage 
stamp,  and  no  modern  conveniences,  no  set 
tubs,  not  even  a  pump,  nothing  but  a  well. 
You  couldn't  expect  a  servant  to  see  the 
beauty  of  the  motion  of  pulling  up  a  bucket 
from  the  well  as  compared  with  that  of  work- 
ing a  pump  handle,  now  could  you? 

The  kitchen  is  the  pride  and  joy  of  our 
hearts.  Talk  about  convenience!  You  can 
stand  in  the  middle  of  it  and  open  the  win- 
dow, shut  the  door,  poke  the  fire,  and  stir  the 
pudding.  It  is  as  compact  as  a  ship's  galley. 
In  contrast  to  that,  we  have  a  shelf  filled 
with  cookery-books  in  all  languages — great 


26  Letters  from  G.  G. 

tomes  in  red  morocco:  "La  Cuisine  Clas- 
sique,"  "La  Regina  delle  Cuoche,"  a  big  Ger- 
man volume  full  of  illustrations  of  imperial 
puddings  and  ice-cream  castles,  also  that 
greediest  of  works,  George  Augustus  Sala's 
"Thorough  Good  Cook";  such  good  things  in 
that!  He  describes  dishes  con  amore,  he 
makes  your  mouth  water,  only  his  recipes  are 
rather  impossible;  they  all  begin  with  a  pint 
of  cream,  and  that,  you  know  .  .  .  when 
you  have  no  cow  .  .  . 

Well,  there's  just  one  thing  in  life  I  pride 
myself  upon,  and  only  one,  and  that  is  my 
cooking.  I'm  a  cook-book  cook,  I  grant  you, 
but  that  wouldn't  trouble  you  a  bit  while  you 
were  eating  my  spaghetti,  and  my  pies,  and 
my  gingerbread,  and  my  chocolate  cake,  and 
my  sou pe  a  I'oignon,  and  my  corn  fritters. 
And  Kitty  cooks  even  better  than  I.  We  have 
our  specialties,  and  neither  encroaches  upon 
the  other's  grounds. 

We  usually  come  down  in  May,  and  have  a 
week's  hard  house-cleaning,  but  when  that  is 


Letters  from  G.  G.  27 

over  we  sit  back  and  breathe  the  fragrance  of 
cleanliness,  and  rejoice  our  sight  in  shining 
brass  and  glass  and  china,  and  polished  fur- 
niture, clean,  mellow-colored  rugs,  and  fresh 
curtains. 

Then  begins  our  happy  summer  career  as 
hostesses.  There  is  a  peculiar  pleasure  and 
satisfaction  in  attending  to  the  creature  com- 
forts of  people  one  likes.  It  is  a  joy  of  a  very 
special  stamp  to  bake  and  brew  things  to 
make  one's  ascetic  friends  overeat  disgrace- 
fully. It  is  pleasant  to  wait  upon  them,  to 
prepare  their  bath,  make  their  bed,  wash  their 
dishes. 

We  love  to  have  people  come.  We  love  to 
have  them  stay,  and  stay  as  long  as  they  will, 
and  then,  I  don't  mind  whispering  to  you,  we 
love  to  have  them  go,  and  come  again  some 
other  time.  We  have  people  with  us  all  sum- 
mer long,  and  it  is  sweet !  But  the  sweetest 
time  of  all  is  in  October,  when  for  our  last 
six  weeks  here  Kitty  and  I  are  quite  by  our- 


28  Letters  from  G.  G. 

selves.  That  is  when  we  are  Darby  and  Joan 
indeed. 

Oh,  the  days  of  Santa  Pace  that  dawn  for 
us  then !  Long  mornings  of  work,  Kitty 
shut  up  in  the  library,  I  shut  up  here  in  my 
den;  long  afternoons  of  walking  in  the  au- 
tumn woods ;  then  long  delicious  rest  when 
we  come  home  dog-tired,  that  good  tired  that 
comes  of  beautiful  long  miles,  rest  by  the 
blazing  wood  fire  on  the  hearth  in  the  dusk. 
We  lie  on  the  couch  in  front  of  it  and  dream 
long  waking  dreams.  And  then  the  long  even- 
ings !  A  lamp  is  lighted  and  placed  on  a  table 
before  the  fire,  and  Kitty-Darby  sits  on  one 
side  reading  aloud,  and  I- Joan  sit  on  the 
other  side  rocking  and  knitting,  and  the  fire 
purrs,  and  Mick  over  on  the  couch  snores  in 
content.  And  the  wind  outside  sighs,  and 
the  lilac  bush  and  the  peach  tree  tap  at  the  win- 
dow and  intensify  the  feel  of  protected 
warmth  in  the  little  book-lined  library. 

And  when  bedtime  comes  we  build  up  a 
high  blaze  and  go  to  sleep  in  the  next  room 


Letters  from  G.  G.  29 

with  the  pinky  light  dancing  on  walls  and 
celling.  Such  good  long  nights  o'  sleep! 
Talk  about  peace! 

The  happy  days  draw  all  too  soon  to  a  close 
and  then  trunks  are  fetched  down  from  the 
attic  and  all  is  prepared  for  winter.  The  smil- 
ing little  house  looks  strange  and  unfriendly 
dismantled  and  shrouded  in  brown  holland 
and  sheets,  with  a  pervasive  penetrating  odor 
of  naphtha  mothballs.  It  gives  a  twinge  to 
turn  the  key  in  the  lock  of  the  green  door, 
with  its  nice  old  brass  knocker,  and  to  turn 
one's  back  upon  the  trumpet  vine — but  ahead 
lies  New  York!  New  York  full  of  friends 
and  picture  shows  and  music  and  hot  tubs! 
New  York,  the  very  smell  of  whose  dirty 
streets  and  noise  of  whose  insane  traffic  are 
thrilling. 

It  is  a  sad  moment  when  one  pulls  out  of 
the  little  station;  but  oh!  it's  fine  to  land  at 
Forty-second  Street! 

Good-night.  It  is  late.  My  candles  are 
flaring  and  fainting.  G.  G. 


30  Letters  from  G.  G. 

G.  G.,  BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK,  TO  R.  F.  AT 
HOME. 

Winter. 

You  don't  seem  to  entirely  realize  that  I 
very  much  belong  to  the  working-class,  and 
earn  what  bread  I  eat ;  and  just  now,  after  my 
long  vacation,  it  is  a  matter  of  no  work — no 
bread,  and  I  can't  be  fluttering  off  to  Chicago 
on  pleasure  bent  at  the  very  outset  of  the  sea- 
son, especially  as  I  am  lucky  enough  to  be  up 
to  the  ears  in  painting.  Yes,  the  miniature 
trade  flourishes,  and  all  I  pray  for  is  eyes  to 
keep  it  up  with.  Eyes  are  a  grave  question 
when  one  does  miniatures.  If  I  sang,  my 
throat  would  doubtless  constantly  threaten 
giving  out ;  if  I  wrote,  I  dare  say  I  should  be 
running  out  of  brains ;  if  I  were  on  the  stage, 
I  should  have  panics  about  my  face  and  figure. 
Well,  when  my  eyes  give  out,  I  can  always 
hire  out  as  cook. 

I  am  working  awfully  hard,  and  playing 
hard  as  well.  One  can't  help  overdoing  both 
in  this  crazy  town.  I  work  all  day,  and  then 


Letters  from  G.  G.  31 

at  night  I  hang  an  evening  frock  on  my  bones 
and  devote  myself  to  diversions.  A  quiet 
evening  at  home  with  a  book,  by  the  lamp,  is 
the  exception  and  the  luxury;  and  you  know, 
in  its  way,  I  love  this  as  much  as  the  life  at 
home,  in  that  dear  crumb  of  a  village  where 
one  can  rise  every  morning  in  the  soothing 
certainty  that  nothing  will  happen — unless  it 
is  that  the  iceman  fails  to  appear,  and  that  is 
exciting,  if  you  like. 

I  like  the  extremes — the  dead  of  the  country 
and  the  heart  of  the  city.  No  commuter's  life 
in  mine,  thank  you. 

It  has  its  depressing  aspect,  the  heart  of  the 
city,  I  don't  deny.  When  I  come  back  to  it, 
sometimes,  after  long  months  of  the  sweetness 
of  the  country,  I  feel  a  frantic  desire  to  rush 
away,  away,  away — anywhere  out  of  the 
world — out  to  sea  in  an  open  boat — out  of 
sight  of  land;  to  the  mountain-tops;  to  the 
deep,  silent  forest  places ;  away  from  the  sight 
of  ill-used  dogs  and  horses  and  children ;  from 
the  sight  of  the  crowds  in  the  streets  of  peo- 


32  Letters  from  G.  G. 

pie,  nine  out  of  every  ten  of  whom  look  as  if 
they  ought  still  to  be  going  about  on  all  fours ; 
away  from  the  sight  of  this  parody  of  life,  the 
bitter  gaiety,  the  light-hearted  corruption  of 
this  thoroughfare  of  hell,  this  plague-spot  on 
the  face  of  the  earth. 

But  it  all  wears  off  in  an  incredibly  brief 
time,  and  when  the  time  comes  I  am  loath  to 
leave  the  never-ending  kaleidoscopic  show,  so 
freighted  with  human  interest.  The  people, 
all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men,  that  is  what  is 
so  unflaggingly  entertaining,  for  I  like  people, 
you  know.  I  gather  from  an  occasional  word 
you  have  let  drop  here  and  there  that  you  are 
not  overfond  of  la  bete  humaine.  I  have  to 
own  to  a  very  vulgar  love  of  human  beings  of 
all  kinds.  I  like  them,  and  I'd  engage  to  get 
on  equally  well  with  the  Czar  of  Russia,  Jack 
the  Ripper,  Kid  McCoy  or  Beau  Brummel. 
Of  course,  you  are  right ;  it  is  seldom  that  one 
can  sight  up  very  high  at  one's  neighbor  and 
not  overshoot  the  mark,  but  all  people  have 
their  points,  if  one  has  the  beauty-seeing  eye 


Letters  from  G.  G.  33 

to  detect  them.  They  may  not  strike  a  very 
uniformly  high  level,  like  our  skyscrapers,  but, 
like  most  churches,  they  may  have  a  spire — 
or  two. 

Good-by,  and  let  me  repeat  how  nice  I  think 
it  of  you  all  to  have  wanted  to  see  me  again. 
Are  you  quite  sure  you  did?  You  know  I'm 
not  entirely  sure  that  I  want  to  see  you  again. 
Now,  please,  please,  no  misunderstanding! 
For  that  I  must  trust  you.  The  idea  is,  that 
from  things  you  say  I  think  you  have  perhaps 
a  rosier  memory  of  me  than  I  could  quite  live 
up  to,  and  that  it  would  be  at  the  risk  of  dis- 
illusioning you  that  I  should  permit  myself 
to  be  seen  again. 

G.  G.,  BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK,  TO  R.  F.  AT 
HOME. 

Winter. 

What  is  one  to  do  about  coming  of  Puritan 
ancestors?  There  ought  to  be  a  remedy. 
Won't  you — or  some  one — invent  a  quick, 
sure,  safe  cure? 


34  Letters  from  G.  G. 

I  was  coming  home  from  downtown  in  a 
Sixth  Avenue  car  the  other  night,  between  six 
and  seven  o'clock.  Two  men  got  in  at  Four- 
teenth Street  and  sat  in  the  corner  opposite 
me.  One  was  a  spare,  red-headed,  pale  young 
man,  talking  eagerly  and  hurriedly  to  the 
other,  a  huge  creature  who  looked  like  an  el- 
derly toad,  shabby  and  dejected  enough,  and 
most  unappetizing.  He  looked  a  good,  hon- 
est sort,  though. 

The  young  man  was  evidently  trying  with 
all  his  might  to  cheer  the  elder.  It  seemed 
characteristic  of  New  York  that  his  efforts  at 
bracing  up  his  friend  had  to  take  place  in  a 
crowded  car  during  the  hurried  run  between 
Fourteenth  and  Thirty-fourth  Streets.  He 
was  trying  hard  to  give  the  greatest  possible 
help  in  the  shortest  possible  time,  and  the 
words  tumbled  out  sharp  and  quick  and  em- 
phatic : 

"Now,  you  just  want  to  brace  up!  You 
mustn't  give  up,  d'ye  hear?  Yes,  I  know; 
that  was  a  good  job  you  lost,  and  you'd  had 


Letters  from  G.  G.  35 

it  for  years,  but  what  of  it?  There's  other 
good  jobs !  And  you've  got  a  good  name  and 
a  clean  record  behind  you,  and  lots  of  friends, 
all  right.  And  your  friends  ain't  goin'  back 
on  you.  They're  goin'  to  stand  by  you.  Yes, 
of  course,  you  ain't  as  young  as  you  was,  but 
then  neither  is  your  children  as  young  as  they 
was ;  and  they're  goin'  to  be  able  to  help. 
And  then  there's  your  wife.  Your  wife  is  a 
fine  woman.  She'll  stick  to  you — job  or  no 
job.  And  there's  my  wife.  Why,  my  wife 
jest  thinks  the  world  of  you.  She  was  sayin' 
only  the  other  night  how  much  she  thought 
o'  you.  Now,  you  jest  want  to  stand  up  and 
face  the  band,  and  rely  on  your  friends.  They 
ain't  goin'  to  see  you  go  to  the  wall.  /  ain't, 
for  one.  You  won't  forget  that,  will  you?" 

The  old  man  seemed  greatly  moved.  He 
murmured  his  thanks  in  broken  scraps: 

"You're  awful  kind  .  .  .  Your  wife  is 
real  good !  .  .  .  Thank  her  for  me  ... 
I'm  very  sensitive,  and  I  appreciate  it  when 
folks  have  a  friendly  feelin',  and  speak  a  kind 


36  Letters  from  G.  G. 

word  to  me.  .  .  .  Thank  you  .  .  . 
Thank  you  all  ...  !" 

At  Thirty-fourth  Street  the  young-  man 
briskly  shook  hands,  thumped  his  friend  ear- 
nestly on  the  back,  and  dashed  for  the  door, 
to  transfer  to  a  crosstown  car. 

The  old  man  sat  in  his  corner.  A  newsboy 
passed.  He  stopped  him  and  bought  a  paper 
— not  to  read.  He  opened  it  and  held  it  be- 
fore his  face  to  screen  himself  from  sight,  but 
I  saw  the  tears  stream  down  his  cheeks,  and 
I  saw  the  disconsolate  sag  of  his  trembling 
mouth  and  chin. 

I  had  to  leave  the  car  at  Fortieth  Street,  so 
I  had  not  much  time  to  think  what  to  do.  I 
wanted  so  to  speak  to  him,  to  say:  "Don't 
grieve;  please  don't!  Honestly,  it  will  all 
come  right." 

But  oh,  the  self-consciousness  of  New 
Englanders !  Their  fear  of  their  impulses ! 
Their  dread  of  being  thought  forthputting ! 
What  would  the  man  think  of  a  strange  wo- 


Letters  from  G.  G.  37 

man  stepping  up  and  speaking  to  him — no 
matter  why? 

And  so  I  walked  out  of  the  car  without  a 
word  or  a  look  at  him. 

I  wonder  did  it  turn  out  all  right?  I  have 
thought  of  him  ever  since,  always  with  re- 
gretful, prayerful  well-wishing. 

What  would  you  have  done,  you,  who  are 
not  from  Boston,  Massachusetts? 

G.  G.,  BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK,  TO  R.  F.  AT 
HOME. 

Spring. 

You  will  find  inclosed  a  memory-jogging 
picture  of  your  old  friend  of  Paris  days. 
You  say  that  you  catch  yourself  trying  vainly 
to  recall  what  I  look  like.  That  I  seem  to  you 
now  a  myth,  a  shadow.  Well,  this  is  how  I 
should  wish  you  to  remember  me.  It  is  a 
half-tone  reproduction  which  appeared  in  a 
magazine  of  a  portrait  of  G.  G.,  done  by  prob- 
ably the  best  miniature  painter  in  America. 
I  know  you'll  say  to  yourself  as  you  look  at 


38  Letters  from  G.  G. 

it:  "Jove!  she's  good-looking!  I  didn't  re- 
member her  as  good-looking  as  that!" 

Now,  that's  all  right.  You  don't  remem- 
ber me  like  that  because,  my  friend,  I  am  not 
like  that — not  when  I  first  get  up  in  the  morn- 
ing and  hook  together  a  serviceable  shirtwaist 
and  skirt,  and  go  down  to  breakfast.  But, 
bless  you !  it  is  not  the  office  of  the  miniature 
painter  to  depict  one  at  one's  flattest  and  most 
unprofitable.  A  miniature  painter  should 
make  it  his  charming  task  to  immortalize  a 
woman  at  her  "one  dead,  deathless  hour,"  as 
she  is  in  the  eyes  of  her  lover,  at  the  most 
ecstatic  moment  of  his  rosiest  dream  of  her! 

Now — there  I  am !  That  miniature  is  what 
/  call  a  success. 

When  Laura  was  painting  it  she  asked  me 
if  I  didn't  think,  honestly  now,  that  she  was 
being  mighty  kind  to  my  collar  bones?  She 
was,  indeed,  as  you  see,  and  to  my  nose  also. 
That  willing  nose,  as  Laura  so  sweetly  termed 
it,  which  is  such  a  contradiction  to  the  chin. 


Letters  from  G.  G.  39 

The  nose  is  whispering,  "You  may" — when 
the  chin  announces,  "You  sha'n't!" 

As  for  you,  you  are  as  present  to  me  to-day 
as  you  were  a  year  ago  February.  I  think 
I  could  make  a  pencil  sketch  of  your  Graeco- 
American  profile,  but  that,  let  me  hasten  to 
add,  is  because  I  have  the  eye  whose  business 
it  is  to  take  account  of  lines  and  shapes,  so 
you  needn't  feel  flattered. 

Do  you  realize  that  we  are  coming  to  be 
very  old  friends?  Have  you  not  often  had 
occasion  to  sigh :  "Where  are  the  friends  of 
yester-year  ?" 

G.  G.,  BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK,  TO  R.  F.  AT 
HOME. 

Spring. 

Not  satisfied  with  that  nice  pretty  picture? 
You  want  one  that  does  not  look  "so  far  from 
earth"?  Well,  then,  here  is  one  as  near  to 
the  earth  as  you  could  wish.  I'm  sending 
it  to  you  not  really  to  fill  your  long-felt  need, 
but  to  show  you,  for  one  thing,  how  very 


40  Letters  from  G.  G. 

dear  Mick  is.  Don't  you  love  him,  sitting  up 
there  on  the  bench  so  still,  with  paws  in  G. 
G.'s  lap? 

And  for  another — but  stay! 

No  use — when  spring  "paints  azure  all 
above  and  emerald  all  underfoot,"  I  am  like 
that  lilac  bush  in  Bryant  Park ;  not  being  a 
poet  I  can't  burst  into  rapturous  song.  The 
best  I  can  do  is  to  blossom  into  glad  raiment. 

Nothing,  for  the  time  being,  is  so  well 
worth  study,  not  brown — but  light-hearted, 
iridescent  study — as  clothes! 

For  a  spell  there  I  have  not  a  soul  above  a 
silk  petticoat,  until  at  Easter  I  climb  to  one  in 
the  form  you  see  reproduced. 

I  say,  Romney  Flagg,  dear  boy,  will  you  be 
pleased  just  to  look  at  me  'at?  My  hat,  did  I 
say? 

MY  HAT!!! 

Doesn't  it  deserve  to  be  writ  in  letters  capi- 
tal ?  Not  on  brass  or  stone  or  earth  or  what- 


Letters  from  G.  G.  41 

ever — but  in  the  hushed  and  reverent  heart 
of  man! 

It  should  really  be  spoke  in  verse,  not  in 
my  colloquial  patois,  for  few  things  so  deserve 
immortality  as  this  same  sweet  thing  in  hats. 
We  have  spoken  of  the  moral  element  of  true 
beauty.  The  moral  support  afforded  me  by 
that  thing  resting  like  a  blessing  on  my  head ! 
It  feels  like  a  halo  descended  from  heaven 
upon  me.  It  is  the  glory  that  was  Paris  and 
the  grandeur  that  was  Rue  de  la  Paix ! 

My  mental  and  spiritual  make-up  ought  to 
undergo  repairs  to  match  it.  It  looks  as  if 
physically  I'd  do,  for  I  defy  you  to  say  it  is 
not  becoming;  but  otherwise — oh,  yes,  I 
know  I'm  miserably  unworthy  of  it,  for  find 
me  in  art  or  nature  anything  more  consum- 
mate than  the  curves  of  that  brim ;  more  flow- 
er-like than  the  droop  of  the  plumes;  more 
mysterious  than  the  windings  of  the  velvet 
under  the  edge;  more  tenderly  dazzling  than 
the  wreath;  more  luscious  than  the  deep  gold 
of  the  straw! 


42  Letters  from  G.  G. 

G.  G.  AT  HOME  ON  THE  CAPE,  TO  R.  F.  HOME 

AGAIN    FROM    EUROPE. 

Autumn. 

Glory  be!     You've  written  at  last! 

I  was  on  the  point  of  sending  you  a  copy 
of  a  poem  by  Emily  Dickinson.  One  verse, 
the  first,  runs: 

"I  had  a  guinea  golden; 

I  lost  it  in  the  sand, 
And  though  the  sum  was  simple, 

And  pounds  were  in  the  lapd, 
Still  had  it  such  a  value 

Unto  my  frugal  eye, 
That  when  I  could  not  find  it 

I  sat  me  down  to  sigh." 

I  had  no  relish,  no  mind  at  all,  to  lose  my 
sterling  friend,  and  I  was  so  happy  to  see  your 
funny,  familiar  fist  in  its  customary  green  ink, 
that  I  forgive  you  the  very  lame  reasons  you 
give  for  your  interminable  silence. 

All  the  elaborate  reasons  you  give  for  open- 
ing your  letter  with  a  frank  "Dear  Gladys" 
are  equally  flimsy.  The  only  one  that  counts 
is  the  very  first:  that  you  want  to,  and  don't 


Letters  from  G.  G.  43 

think  I'll  mind.  Gracious,  no!  Call  me  any- 
thing you  like.  I  don't  like  Gladys  myself.  It 
is  only  one  degree  less  stupid  a  name  than 
Grace  or  Mabel  or  Ethel,  etc.,  and  nobody 
but  picture-show  catalogues  calls  me  Gladys, 
anyway.  It's  always  my  two  initials,  G.  G. 
or  just  G.  that  I'm  called,  with  such  vulgar 
variants  as  Gyp,  Gippo,  or  Gipporino. 

I  don't  so  very  much  care  for  your  name, 
Romney,  you  know,  so  I  shall  call  you  Guinea 
Golden.  Isn't  that  a  pleasant  name  ?  I'll  call 
you  that  as  long  as  you  write  me  long,  pleas- 
ant letters;  when  you  don't,  you  will  be 
Guinea  Pig! 

G.  G.  AT  HOME  TO  R.  F.  AT  HOME. 

'Autumn. 

Don't  you  think  grown-ups  as  a  rule  rather 
dislike  picnics  ?  They  leave  the  liking  of  them 
to  children.  For  their  part  they  had  rather 
stay  at  home  and  eat  in  the  dining-room  at  a 
solid  table,  in  a  comfortable  chair,  without 
spiders  and  dead  leaves  in  their  victuals. 


44  Letters  from  G.  G. 

But  I  do  love  a  picnic!  Just  the  packing 
of  a  basket  with  eatables,  and  going  some- 
where, anywhere,  so  long  as  it  is  away,  to  eat 
in  the  open,  makes  a  holiday  and  a  treat. 

I  can  remember  many  a  picnic  of  the  kind 
the  picture  of  which  naturally  rises  in  one's 
mind  at  the  name.  The  sort  to  which  many 
people  and  all  their  children  are  asked,  that 
take  place  in  some  nice,  clean  grove  to  which 
one  drives  in  "barges."  The  sort  that  are  all 
fun  and  feed  for  the  young,  all  work  and 
weariness  for  the  elders,  whose  only  pleasure 
in  the  thing  is  in  seeing  the  children  enjoy 
themselves. 

From  eleven  on  through  my  teens  the  years 
were  punctuated  with  birthday  picnics  of  that 
description,  for  which  I  have  prayed  for  good 
weather  with  desperate  intensity  for  days  be- 
fore. 

But  the  picnics  that  have  made  dear  the 
name  have  been  very  different.  Much  less 
populous,  for  one  thing.  The  ideal  number 
of  participants  is  two,  possibly  four,  or  even 


Letters  from  G.  G.  45 

three.  Of  course,  they  must  be  exactly  the 
right  three  or  four,  but  I've  not  found  the 
right  people  for  tete-a-tete  picnics  so  very 
rare. 

Kitty  and  I  mark  with  golden  letters  certain 
days  in  our  past  on  which  we  have  started  off 
in  the  morning,  with  food  for  the  day,  and 
come  home  at  night,  having  passed  spotless, 
consummate  hours. 

Once  Mother  and  Daisy  went  to  the  Wor- 
cester Music  Festival,  on  a  glorious  Septem- 
ber day.  Kitty  and  I,  left  to  ourselves,  took 
sandwiches  and  fruit,  a  book  of  old  English 
ballads  and  the  dogs,  and  went  to  Chestnut 
Hill  Reservoir.  We've  never  forgotten  the 
mood  of  that  simple  day. 

Oliver  made  one  in  some  of  our  most  mem- 
orable picnics.  On  a  special  one  there  were 
but  the  three  of  us:  Kitty  (poet),  I  (paint- 
er) and  Oliver  (painter-poet).  You  might 
expect  of  that  combination  that  reason  and 
soul  would  be  the  fare.  At  most  a  grape,  a 
wafer,  a  drop  of  dew?  No  such  thing.  I 


46  Letters  from  G.  G. 

wish  you  had  seen  the  size  hampers  we  stag- 
gered under  on  our  way  to  Duxbury. 

It  was  early  May,  apple-blossom  time,  and 
we  knew  of  an  orchard  down  there  that  was  a 
miracle  in  the  spring.  We  took  an  early 
train,  and  had  time  for  a  good  rest  before 
food,  under  the  most  thickly  blossomed,  em- 
bowering pink  tree. 

Such  a  spread!  Anchovies,  olives,  salame, 
cold  chicken,  a  salad;  and  for  sweets,  those 
marvels,  pecan  sticks  and  brandied  marrons 
glaces,  all  accompanied  by  champagne.  I've 
said  ever  since  that  no  one  knows  champagne 
who  doesn't  know  it  in  the  sunshine,  under 
apple-blossom  boughs. 

There  was  not  the  slightest  suggestion  in 
us  that  day  of  the  lean,  hollow-eyed  artist, 
starving  in  his  garret,  nor  did  we  bear  out 
the  popular  impression  that  has  it  that  the 
artistic  temperament  is  coupled  with  a  dainty 
appetite  and  a  delicate  constitution.  (It  was 
Maude  Valerie  White,  and  she's  an  artist,  if 


Letters  from  G.  G.  47 

you  like,  who  used  so  devoutly  to  say: 
"Thank  God,  I'm  greedy!") 

We've  had  some  picnics  on  the  river,  when, 
after  an  afternoon's  canoeing,  we  have  found 
precisely  the  spot,  and  tying  the  canoes  to- 
gether have  had  our  meal  by  sunset  glow,  in 
the  lee  of  a  wooded  shore,  and  paddled  home 
by  moonlight.  Fragrant  memories,  those! 

Nowadays,  when  Kitty  and  I  are  alone  at 
home  on  the  Cape,  we  sometimes  walk  to  the 
sea,  three  miles  from  the  house,  with  bread 
and  butter  spread  with  meat  for  solid  and  jam 
for  sweet.  We  sit  on  the  sand  and  rest  and 
look  at  the  water  and  are  very  happy. 

Even  taking  our  food  on  a  tray  out  under 
the  big  oak  in  fair  weather  makes  a  miniature 
picnic,  and  is  an  improvement  on  the  dining- 
room.  And  now  that  we  have  added  a  back 
porch  and  can  set  a  table  out  there,  though 
that  is  only  one  remove  from  the  every-day 
programme,  it  still  smacks  of  picnic,  and  the 
food  is  doubly  grateful  and  blessed,  because 
eaten  under  the  sky. 


48  Letters  from  G.  G. 

Is  it  a  relic  of  the  child  or  of  the  savage  that 
lingers  in  us? 


G.  G.,  BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK,  TO  R.  F.  AT 
HOME. 

Winter. 

The  yearly  operatorial  debauch  has  begun, 
Guinea,  my  dear.  Once  I'm  started,  you  can't 
stop  me.  I  go  through  the  season  on  a  pro- 
longed music  jag,  and  this  year  it  is  more 
than  usual  strong  upon  me  because  I've  had 
luck,  and  the  pennies  are  not  as  scarce  as  they 
sometimes  are,  and  there  are  such  things  to 
be  heard! 

Some  children  are  born  with  silver  spoons 
in  their  mouths,  others  are  said  to  be  born 
pencil  in  hand.  I  think  I  must  have  come 
into  the  world  presenting  a  ticket  which 
should  admit  me  to  all  the  music  I  wanted  to 
hear. 

I  began  early  my  mad  career  as  opera-goer. 
I  was  not  three  years  old.  I  still  retain  a 
vague  impression  of  sitting  up  in  the  front  of 


Letters  from  G.  G.  49 

a  box  at  the  Pagliano  in  Florence,  dressed  in 
my  best  frock,  clutching  a  bouquet  in  both 
hands,  and  listening  with  every  fibre  of  my 
little  body.  It  was  "Rigoletto,"  my  first  de- 
light. Delight  it  was,  though  all  that  re- 
mains of  that  first  performance  is  a  memory 
of  a  man  in  red  tights,  and  a  lady  in  white 
who  wept  in  her  pocket  handkerchief. 

Then  "Aida,"  over  which  I  broke  my  heart, 
for  the  tenor  was  a  friend  of  the  family  and 
a  particular  friend  of  mine,  and  when  I  saw 
him  dying  in  the  black  dungeon,  I  bellowed 
right  out:  "Nannetti!  Nannetti!  Mio  povero 
Nannetti!"  and  had  to  be  hurried  out  of  the 
box  and  pacified  and  told  that  it  was  all  make- 
believe,  and  that  I  should  see  my  Nannetti 
safe  and  sound  next  day  if  I'd  be  .good  and 
stop  crying. 

All  through  boarding-school  years  our 
greatest  treat  was  going  to  the  opera,  and 
there  was  another  case  of  heartbreak  one  day 
when  I  fell  down  and  damaged  my  nose,  and 
was  such  a  sight  that  "Mademoiselle,"  our 


50  Letters  from  G.  G. 

"dircctrice,"  wouldn't  let  me  go  to  hear  "Nor- 
ma"  in  the  evening.  I've  never  had  the 
chance  since.  I've  never  heard  "Norma," 
and  I'm  afraid  I  shall  never  catch  up  with 
that  one  missed  opportunity. 

After  we  came  home  to  America,  of  course 
opera  nights  were  fewer  than  in  Italy,  but 
then  there  were  the  symphonies,  bless  'em, 
year  in,  year  out.  In  Boston  they  only  gave 
us  a  couple  of  weeks'  opera  season,  and  that 
had  to  last  us  until  next  year.  But,  oh,  my 
soul!  the  year  the  De  Reszkes  first  came! 
Who  will  ever  forget  those  performances  in 
Mechanics'  Hall!  I  fell  in  love  at  first  hear- 
ing with  divine  Jean,  and  I  shall  die  and  turn 
to  dust  still  adoring  him,  and  thanking  my 
stars  that  I  happened  to  be  alive  when  he  was, 
and  privileged  to  hear  him  in  his  glory.  I 
heard  him  so  often  that  finally  before  the  end 
the  impression  of  his  voice  became  enduring, 
and  now  I  can  shut  my  ears  and  summon  back 
the  echo  of  entire  passages  and  phrases  as  he 
rendered  them. 


Letters  from  G.  G.  51 

Ah,  Jean !  the  only  one  of  his  kind  that  ever 
was  or  ever  will  be.  The  only  Romeo,  the 
only  Lohengrin,  the  only  Walther,  and  Tris- 
tan, and  Siegfried!  The  only  one  who  ever 
made  one  realize  to  the  very  full  every  possi- 
ble romantic  beauty  of  a  character  he  imper- 
sonated and  all  the  beauty  of  the  music  that 
lie  sang. 

There  were  two  charming  boys  of  our  ac- 
quaintance in  those  old  Boston  days  who  shared 
our  enthusiasm  for  opera  (Kitty  is  as  music 
mad  as  I).  One  was  a  budding  composer, 
the  other  a  student  of  philosophy  at  Harvard. 
How  often  we  climbed  the  gallery  stairs  to- 
gether! We  usually  went  Dutch  treat,  but 
once  these  youths  invited  us,  and  we  went  to 
hear  "Tristan  and  Isolde,"  and  had  good 
seats,  and  we  were  very  fine,  and  long  after  I 
learned  that  it  was  fortunate  the  weather  was 
mild  for  a  time  just  then,  for  the  philosopher, 
Colline-wise,  had  pawned  his  overcoat  to  pay 
for  his  share  of  the  tickets,  the  dear  thing! 

Nowadays  in  New  York  here  there  is  liter- 


52  Letters  from  G.  G. 

ally  no  staying  away  from  the  opera.  For 
one  thing  it  is  so  close  at  hand.  How  could 
I  settle  down  to  a  quiet  evening's  letter  writ- 
ing to  Guinea  Golden  when  I  knew  that  the 
"Walkiire"  was  going  on  within  a  few  hun- 
dred feet?  I  believe  I've  sat  in  every  corner 
of  that  good  old  Metropolitan  Opera  House 
from  the  front  row  in  the  orchestra  to  the 
last  in  the  "sky  parlor,"  and  further,  for  I 
heard  the  "Gotterdammerung"  one  night  last 
spring  from  the  stairway  of  the  fire-escape 
outside!  It  was  a  balmy,  starry  night,  the 
windows  and  doors  were  all  left  open,  and  I 
heard  every  syllable  even  of  the  text.  The 
music  came  mellowed  by  the  distance,  accom- 
panied by  the  muffled  hum  of  the  streets  be- 
low. What  was  amusing  was  when  the 
"Funeral  March"  was  being  played,  and  the 
brasses  made  those  big  boom-boom  crashes,  to 
hear  the  electric-car  gongs  down  in  Broad- 
way make  response  with  a  tinkling  ping-ping. 
Well,  rather  than  stay  away  from  an  opera 
or  a  symphony,  I  believe  I'd  sit  perched 


Letters  from  G.  G.  53 

throughout  a  performance  on  the  center  chan- 
delier if  they'd  let  me. 

Now,  I  ask  you,  when  one  cares  that  much 
for  anything,  isn't  one  entitled  to  one's  fill  of 
it?  I  know  people  a-plenty  who  raise  their 
eyebrows  in  disapproving  wonder  that  near 
beggars  like  us  should  indulge  in  what  seems 
to  them  an  extravagance.  But  as  we  sit  in 
our  modest  places,  with  rapture  filtering 
through  our  ears  to  our  souls,  we  ask  our- 
selves the  question :  If  we  have  not  a  right  to 
be  here,  who  has  ?  Leave  us  to  get  on,  if  need 
be,  without  the  necessities  of  life,  but  grant 
us  the  luxury  of  music. 

Man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone. 

G.  G.,  BROADWAY,  TO  R.  F.  AT  HOME. 

Winter. 

Of  course  you  don't  know  Maude  Sander- 
son, do  you,  Guinea?  Well,  if  ever  there  was 
a  dear  soul !  The  sort  that  makes  you  feel 
as  if  not  only  she,  but  the  whole  world  loved 
and  appreciated  you. 


54  Letters  from  G.  G. 

One  night,  awhile  ago,  a  number  of  us  were 
discussing  the  question :  If  one  could  be  some 
one  else,  and  could  meet  one's  present  self, 
would  one  like  oneself? 

Some  thought  yes,  some  thought  no,  giving 
more  or  less  unconvincing  reasons. 

But  sweet-hearted  Maude  exclaimed  with 
such  complete  conviction:  "Why,  I'm  sure  I 
should  love  myself !  I  should  be  so  sure  of  so 
much  love  in  return." 

And  that  ended  the  discussion,  it  seemed  so 
final. 

For  my  part,  I  always  did  agree  with  Mrs. 
Golightly  in  her  admission:  "I  never  could 
quite  hate  a  man  for  quite  adoring  me."  Man, 
or  woman  either,  for  the  very  best  reason  in 
the  world  for  liking  people  seems  to  be  their 
liking  one.  It  is  the  most  endearing  quality. 
Nothing,  not  the  charm  of  beauty,  youth,  wit, 
character,  goodness  or  gold,  compares  with  it. 

But  then  it  doesn't  need  to  go  as  far  as 
that.  Who  wants  to  be  adored  by  every 
passer-by  ?  What  I'm  coming  to  is  the  charm 


Letters  from  G.  G.  55 

that  people  have — and  by  people  I  mean  just 
people,  strangers,  folks  around  the  streets,  in 
shops  and  trains  and  street-cars — a  charm 
that  it  would  seem  easy  to  cultivate  or  develop 
— that  of  seeing  one.  Do  you  know  what  I 
mean?  That  of  giving  one  a  sense  that  one 
exists  for  them,  of  not  being  so  completely 
imprisoned  in  themselves,  within  the  walls  of 
their  own  thoughts  and  interests  that  no  stran- 
ger need  apply  for  admittance  to  their  con- 
sciousness. 

Don't  you  know  the  feeling  of  warm  grati- 
tude that  gushes  up  in  your  heart  if  a  shop- 
girl really  sees  and  hears  you,  if  she  gives 
you  the  feeling  that  you  are  something  more 
than  a  part  of  her  weary  mechanical  drud- 
gery? 

I  once  happened  to  be  in  a  big  department 
store  to  which  I  seldom  went  because  it  is  so 
far  from  home.  I  bought  some  stationery. 
The  girl  in  charge  of  the  counter  was  so  ami- 
able, she  radiated  such  general  good  will,  and 
treated  me  so  like  a  human  being  that  natu- 


56  Letters  from  G.  G. 

rally  I've  gone  to  her  for  my  writing-paper 
ever  since.  And  though  I  have  to  go  far,  I'd 
go  farther  just  to  pay  homage  to  that  lovable 
quality — the  consciousness  of  the  other  per- 
son. She  makes  of  her  business  of  selling 
paper  a  personal  relation. 

I  dare  say  in  the  same  way  shop-girls  re- 
member customers  who  are  aware  of  them  as 
individuals  and  not  money  in  the  slot  ma- 
chines across  the  counter. 

I  saw  a  case  once  in  Sixth  Avenue  of  an 
old  shoe-lace  peddler  holding  out  his  fistful 
of  dangling  shoe-laces  to  the  passing  stream 
of  shopping  women.  He  might  have  been  thin 
air,  or  the  people  blind;  no  one  saw  him.  If 
they  did,  it  was  mostly  with  a  look  that  swept 
him  from  the  sidewalk  into  the  gutter  and  off 
the  face  of  the  earth. 

And  then  a  girl  walked  by,  unhurriedly,  and 
saw  the  outstretched  hand  full  of  strings,  and 
from  the  hand  she  glanced  to  the  face.  And 
she  had  eyes  in  her  head  that  saw  what  they 
were  looking  at,  and  carried  the  message  to  a 


Letters  from  G.  G.  57 

brain  that  understood  and  to  a  heart  that  felt, 
and  her  whole  person  spoke  so  plainly : 

"You  have  a  gentle,  patient  old  face,  and 
you  are  old.  Your  shoe-laces  are  probably 
pretty  bad,  but  I'd  buy  some  only  I  can't  just 
now,  though  I  can't  stop  to  tell  you  why.  But 
I'm  sorry,  and  another  day  I'll  buy  if  I  can." 

Believe  it  or  not,  she  said  it  all,  and  the  old 
man  felt  it,  and  I'm  sure  he  had  a  comfort- 
able sense  of  being  made  of  flesh  and  bones, 
and  not  of  mist,  as  she  went  by  with  the 
crowd.  A  pleasant  sense  which  was  the  fore- 
runner of  and  maybe  quite  equal  to  the  satis- 
faction of  selling  the  dozen  laces  I  stepped  up 
and  bought  of  him,  all  on  account  of  the  girl's 
genial,  comprehending,  responsive  eyes,  which 
appeared  to  be  open  to  every  appeal  made  to 
them. 

In  these  days,  when  such  a  howl  is  going 
up  over  the  rise  in  the  cost  of  living,  over  the 
Baked  Apple  ice.  sign,  which  seems  to  spell 


58  Letters  from  G.  G. 

poverty  for  so  many,  I'll  confide  to  you  that 
I  think  people  miss  a  lot  in  not  being  poor. 

I  don't  mean  the  sort  of  poverty  that  knows 
how  poor  it  is,  and  how  poor  it  is  going  to  re- 
main, but  the  uncertain  poverty,  the  adven- 
turous, the  Bohemian  poverty,  that  hasn't  a 
penny  to-day,  but  may  have  some  to-morrow. 

I  don't  know,  it  may  be  a  case  of  sour 
grapes,  but  I  think  I'm  honest  when  I  say  that 
for  nothing  in  the  world  would  I  be  anything 
but  a  poor  Bohemian. 

Would  I,  I  wonder,  even  if  I  had  the 
chance,  settle  into  an  orderly  member  of  so- 
ciety with  a  salary  or  an  income?  Or  would 
I  refuse  to  surrender  the  vivid  joys  of  the  un- 
expected that  come  of  belonging  to  the  army 
of  those  who  live  on  nothi/ig  in  particular  a 
year? 

I'm  glad  the  chance  is  not  likely  to  be  of- 
fered me.  It  would  be  disappointing  to  find 
that  I'd  consent  to  fall  into  the  groove  in 
which  a  real  bed,  and  three  meals  a  day,  and 


Letters  from  G.  G.  59 

the  amount  of  clothes  prescribed  by  the  law 
were  assured  me  until  I  died. 

No  need  to  tell  me  that  it  is  a  comfort  to 
know  whence  your  next  five  dollars  are  com- 
ing. Don't  I  know  it?  And  yet  .  .  . 
when  you  don't  know,  how  like  a  meteor  it 
flashes  into  view.  And,  you  know,  it  always 
does  come,  somehow  or  other.  I  have  a  fairly 
good  number  of  years'  experience  to  back  me 
when  I  say  that. 

The  secret  of  it  is,  I  suppose,  that  if  you  do 
what  is  up  to  you,  some  one — call  it  God  if 
you  like,  call  it  Providence,  or  call  it  your 
neighbor — will  do  the  rest,  and  you  can't  fall 
down.  It  is  a  comfortable  working  code,  once 
you  get  it  into  your  system. 

Picture  the  Padre  Eterno,  like  the  benign 
old  white-bearded  gentleman  in  a  nice  blue  « 
dress  the  old  masters  loved  to  paint  Him,  pat- 
ting you  on  the  head,  and  saying:  "My  good 
little  child,  all  that  is  required  of  you  is  to 
try  to  do  something  like  your  little  best.  Leave 


60  Letters  from  G.  G. 

the  rest  to  me.     Look  at  me.     Don't  I  look  as 
if  I  were  to  be  trusted?" 


Does  any  one  but  a  Bohemian  know  the  real 
pleasure  of  paying  a  bill?  Mostly  people 
know  where  the  money  lies  waiting  which  will 
pay  the  dentist.  You  can't  escape  dentists' 
bills.  You  shouldn't.  But  you  wonder  how 
this  necessity  for  a  fresh  white  smile  is  to  be 
paid  for,  and  you  a  modest  painter  girl.  And 
then  ...  a  friend  from  the  West  comes 
to  lunch,  and  sees  some  pot-boiling  candle 
shades  you  have  made,  and  she  likes  them, 
and  orders  lots,  and  you  are  thrilled  through 
and  through,  for  that  means  that  the  dentist's 
bill  is  receipted. 

Or  you  come  back  to  town  in  the  fall  after 
a  heaven-sent  summer's  rest.  Your  golden 
days  of  loafing  are  over,  and  black  winter 
stares  you  in  the  eyes.  Of  course  there  is 
nothing  to  worry  about,  but  there  is  the 
spasm  of  glee  that  catches  your  throat  when 
a  beautiful  blonde  young  woman  drops  out  of 


Letters  from  G.  G.  61 

the  rainy  heavens  one  day  while  you  are  darn- 
ing your  stockings,  and  orders  two  miniatures 
of  her  dear  dead  mother,  one  for  herself  and 
one  for  her  brother. 

The  money  for  those  is  going  to  carry  you 
half  through  the  season. 

Then  again,  you  come  home  from  Europe, 
and  land  in  Hoboken  with  exactly  four  dol- 
lars in  the  world,  and  you  go  to  your  "uncle's" 
and  "hang  up"  your  belongings. 

If  you  are  a  Bohemian  you  know  that  road 
to  your  uncle's,  and  your  friends  know  the 
state  of  your  strong  box  by  the  presence  or 
absence  about  the  premises  of  your  valuables, 
if  you  have  any.  Your  jewelry  might  be  diag- 
nosed as  intermittent. 

Well,  then,  you  come  home  from  Europe 
with  four  dollars,  and  borrow  what  you  can 
of  your  uncle,  and  you  go  to  a  big  hotel  in  the 
mountains,  and  there  you  get  half  a  dozen 
portraits  to  do,  and  there  you  are,  set  up  for 
the  next  long  time.  Those  portraits  wouldn't 


62  Letters  from  G.  G. 

be  half  the  joy  to  do  if  they  didn't  mean  fetch- 
ing back  your  rings. 

But,  you  say,  suppose  you  didn't  get  the 
portraits  to  do?  What  is  the  use  of  suppos- 
ing? You  do  get  them. 

And  then  the  fun  it  is,  the  plain,  unmixed 
fun,  to  have  awfully  little  to  do  with  but  do  it 
awfully  well.  Anybody  can  look  well  and  do 
things  with  money,  but  it  takes  an  artist  to  do 
it  on  pretty  nearly  nothing. 

The  fun  it  is,  just  as  you  feel  your  clothes 
are  getting  to  look  a  bit  haggard,  to  have  that 
blessed  Eva  Hawkes  give  you  her  million-dol- 
lar old-rose  broadcloth  dress ! 

And  the  fun  it  is,  when  you  are  feeling  a  bit 
down  and  blue,  to  have  some  one  telephone 
and  ask  will  you  go  to  the  opera  and  sit  in  the 
gallery.  WILL  you!  And  you  sit  in  your 
gallery  seat,  and  know  you  are  having  a  better 
time  than  any  one  in  the  house.  Often  enough 
you  are  invited  to  sit  in  the  best  places,  and 
you  love  it,  and  enjoy  the  space,  and  the  near 
view  of  the  stage,  and  good  air.  But  if  you 


Letters  from  G.  G.  63 

are  a  Bohemian,  you  don't  mind  the  thousand 
or  two  stairs  to  climb,  and  you  don't  mind  the 
fat  German  who  sits  behind  you  and  has  no 
room  for  his  knees  except  the  middle  of  your 
back,  or  the  Italian  next  you,  the  menu  of 
whose  dinner  is  not  difficult  to  guess.  You 
are  so  glad  you  are  there  that  nothing  matters 
but  that  the  music  should  be  there  too. 

And  if  you  have  a  rich  dinner  of  cold  sau- 
sage and  cabbage  salad,  graham  bread  and 
Croton  water  one  night,  just  imagine  how  the 
pheasant  and  champagne  taste  next  night 
when  you  dine  at  the  Mansfields'. 

And  then,  as  you  look  at  a  five-cent  piece 
several  times  before  you  take  a  street-car, 
think  what  joy  it  is  when  you  visit  people 
who  have  carriages  and  automobiles,  even 
though  you  love  to  walk. 

All  this  for  the  blessedness  of  receiving.  Is 
it  necessary  to  speak  of  that  of  giving?  Of 
the  brimming  of  the  heart  when  one  has  had 
a  windfall  in  giving  his  share  of  it  to  the 
neighbor  who  is  having  hard  luck  ?  For  bits 


64  Letters  from  G.  G. 

of  luck  drop  out  of  the  sky,  and  we  only  hap- 
pen to  catch  them  in  our  lap.  If  the  next 
hand  is  extended  in  deeper  need,  the  prize  was 
meant  for  it,  and  it  is  a  privilege  to  hand  it 
where  it  belongs. 

There  have  been  moments  when,  as  in  a 
flash,  the  conviction  has  come  to  me  that 
things  would  not  be  always  as  they  are,  that 
some  day  I  should  have  large  ease  and  plenty, 
though  the  how  and  when  and  whence  are  still 
in  mist.  But  with  the  assurance  came  a  sense 
of  haste  (doubtless  quite  unnecessary).  Let 
me  quickly,  quickly  get  all  there  is  to  be  got 
out  of  this  precious  poverty.  Before  it  is 
over,  let  me  discover  and  enjoy  all  there  is  in 
it.  Let  me  enjoy  the  opportunity  it  gives  of 
not  caring  at  all  whether  the  price  of  food  is 
high  or  low.  If  it  is  low,  well  and  good.  If 
it  is  high,  live  on  cheaper  things,  or  do  with 
less,  or  do  without.  Now,  you  might  call  that 
the  exclusive  prerogative  of  the  rich,  the  not 
caring  whether  food  is  dear  or  cheap.  But  I 
maintain  it  is  the  privilege  of  the  Bohemian. 


Letters  from  G.  G.  65 

If  he  has  very  few  pennies  to-day,  he  will  buy 
bread  and  cheese — the  price  of  those  can 
never  become  ruinous — and  if  he  has  pennies 
to-morrow,  he  will  have  anything  he  likes, 
because  he  doesn't  know  how  long  those  pen- 
nies have  to  last.  There  is  always  the  chance 
of  his  having  more  to-morrow.  If  he  has 
fewer,  he  can  go  back  to  bread  and  cheese,  or 
just  bread. 

Ah,  no !  Let  me  never  be  anything  but  one 
of  the  Sparrows  of  the  Lord.  Let  me  only  be 
a  Little  Sister  of  the  Rich.  'But  if  in  the 
course  of  human  events  it  should  be  willed 
that  I  acquire  much  gold,  let  me  spend  it  in 
becoming  the  Providence  that  gladdens  the 
hearts  of  my  glad  brothers.  Let  me  become 
a  Big  Sister  to  the  Bohemians. 

G.  G.,  BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK,  TO  R.  F.  AT 
HOME. 

Winter. 

I've  been  looking  over  bundles  of  old  let- 
ters, and  I'm  struck  with  a  distressing  point 


66  Letters  from  G.  G. 

in  common  among  most  of  my  correspondents. 

What  is  your  idea  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
on  earth?  Mine — I'll  tell  you  now — is  the 
time  when  no  one  shall  have  any  pet  dislikes, 
when  every  one  shall  like  everything  and 
everybody. 

I  will,  in  my  earthly  paradise,  generously 
permit  people  to  have  preferences — I'll  stretch 
the  point  so  far  as  to  let  them  express  a  slight, 
but  only  a  slight,  leaning  toward  hearing  the 
heavenly  choir  sing  the  Hallelujah  Chorus 
rather  than  "No  Wedding  Bells  for  Me."  But 
they  mustn't  be  too  emphatic  about  it.  They 
must  have  room  for  "No  Wedding  Bells"  and 
"Mah  Coal  Black  Lady,"  too,  or  it  won't  be 
heaven. 

There  shall  be  no  looking  down  on  a  neigh- 
bor's delight  in  Sousa  Marches,  done  by  talk- 
ing machines. 

I'll  have  no  such  speeches  as :  "Oh !  You 
like  Tschaikowsky's  Pathetique  ?  Seems  to  me 
so  sensational" ;  or,  "Yes ;  I  do  like  Beethoven, 
but  Mozart?  Sugar  and  water!"  What's 


Letters  from  G.  G.  67 

the  matter  with  liking  them  all?  They  must 
all  be  likable — since  somebody  likes  them. 

Doesn't  it  make  you  sick,  the  thread  of 
pride  people  manage  to  wind  into  their  voices 
when  they  say :  "I  like  big  dogs,  but  not  little 
dogs" ;  or,  "I  love  horses  and  dogs,  but  I  can't 
abide  cats."  When,  after  all,  "we  are  of  one 
blood — thou  and  I,  brother." 

They  seem  to  feel  there  is  something  very 
precious  about  being  precious.  They  accu- 
mulate and  hoard  their  dislikes,  and  hug  them 
to  their  hearts.  They  are  the  joy  and  pride 
of  their  lives. 

This  one  admires  Gothic  architecture,  but 
the  Baroque  style  is  nothing  but  ostentatious 
bad  taste — and  he  likes  blue,  but  pink  is  weak 
and  bad  and  cheap.  Well,  certainly,  sky  and 
sea  are  of  a  lovely  color,  but  what  about  day- 
break carnations  and  palms  of  babies'  hands? 

One  adores  Fra  Angelico,  and  wouldn't 
give  Mr.  Sargent  houseroom.  He  dotes  on 
Swinburne,  and  calls  Wordsworth  an  old 
bore.  He  thinks  Italy  the  last  word  in  all  that 


68  Letters  from  G.  G. 

is  beautiful,  but  Switzerland  is  a  hideous  hole 
— likes  travel  by  water  but  not  by  land — loves 
Stevenson,  damns  Henry  James, — finally, 
seems  to  think  that  the  point  in  giving  atten- 
tion to  anything  in  any  line  is  to  compare  and 
criticize,  and  not  to  squeeze  out  of  it  the  very 
last  drop  of  pleasure  it  affords. 

It  doesn't  in  the  least  follow  because  one 
loves  the  best  that  there  is  no  room  for  the 
rest. 

Why,  what  is  the  ultimate  end  in  looking  on 
at  and  taking  part  in  this  varied,  glittering, 
gorgeous  pageant,  anyway?  It  seems  not 
only  so  much  saner,  but  so  much  easier  to 
like  things.  I'm  not  saying  but  that  murder 
is  reprehensible  and  theft  not  to  be  encour- 
aged. But  like  things.  Like  'em  all!  Oc- 
cupations, conditions,  and  moods  and  people 
and  works ! 

At  all  events,  it  strikes  me  it  would  pay  to 
try  to  travel  in  that  direction  at  least,  and  not 
be  forever  propping  up  and  adding  to  preju- 
dices and  antipathies. 


Letters  from  G.  G.  69 

You  know  about  that  old  French  lady  and 
the  spinach.  She  was  so  glad  she  didn't  like 
spinach,  because  if  she  liked  it  she  supposed 
she  should  eat  it,  and  she  loathed  it!  Well, 
there  it  is. 

I  don't  pretend  I  haven't  any  dislikes,  but  I 
chalk  myself  a  good  mark  just  as  often  as  I 
get  rid  of  one.  I've  learned  to  like  milk,  and 
I've  stopped  dreading  to  ride  in  an  elevator, 
and  I'm  getting  to  like  Bach.  Oh,  yes !  I'm 
getting  there. 

I  knew  a  man  once  who  said  that  his  prayer 
was:  "Lord,  give  me  this  day  my  daily  opin- 
ion, and  forgive  me  the  one  I  had  yesterday." 

I  think  I  shall  make  mine :  "Give  me  my 
daily  liking,  and  strengthen  those  I've  already 
got." 

Of  course  you  will  throw  at  me  that  it 
would  be  a  deadly  dull  world  in  which  every 
one  agreed  on  every  point.  Well,  perhaps; 
only,  remember,  this  is  my  idea  of  heaven  I'm 
talking  about,  not  of  a  spicy  world,  and  I 
don't  know  that  any  one  ever  pretended  that 


70  Letters  from  G.  G. 

heaven  would  be  an  exciting  place.  Every 
one  would  be  busy  singing  paeans  in  praise  of 
God's  works.  I  suppose  the  only  line  in  which 
one  could  look  for  variety  would  be  the  mil- 
lions of  things  to  sing  about. 

I've  a  few  more  or  less  rabid  dislikes  left 
of  my  own,  but  I'm  looking  to  the  time  when 
I  can  declare  myself  really  catholic  in  taste, 
and  let  me  tell  you,  I  pray  the  Lord  to  hasten 
the  day  when  I  can  truthfully  say  that  I  have 
any  use  for  Palestrina  and  parsnips,  whist, 
rum,  spiders  and  golf. 

G.  G.,  BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK,  TO  R.  F.  AT 
HOME. 

Spring. 

Guinea,  dear,  you  are  a  great  comfort.  I 
believe  you  are,  like  Jean,  the  only  one  of  your 
kind.  One  can  say  what  one  likes  to  you, 
and  it  is  like  dropping  a  pebble  into  a  bottom- 
less pit,  one  never  hears  from  it  again.  I 
mean  by  that,  that  there  are  no  consequences ; 
that  you  never  pull  one  up  short  and  make 


Letters  from  G.  G.  71 

one  argue  or  give  account  of  what  one  says 
or  means.  You  understand.  You  accept  it 
with  a  smile  for  what  it  is  worth,  and  send 
one  back  your  smiling  reply,  and  give  your 
own  experiences  and  opinions  which  may  or 
may  equally  agreeably  not  agree  with  one's 
own. 

Are  you  keeping  tab?  It's  two  years, 
Guinea !  And  don't  you  love  to  think  it  will 
go  on  forever  ?  Let's  keep  it  up  forever.  Let's 
just  sit  like  two  demure  China  mandarins, 
nodding  and  smiling  at  one  another  at  our 
thousand  miles'  distance,  on  and  on  and  on, 
down  through  the  long  perspective  of  the 
years,  on  to  the  vanishing  point. 

But  all  things  come  to  an  end,  you  say. 
Yes,  I  suppose  so!  and  I  dare  say  the  end  of 
you,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned,  will  be  that 
some  fine  day  you'll  up  and  get  engaged  to 
some  girl  or  other.  And  then — she  won't  let 
you  take  the  time  to  write  me  delightful,  fat 
bundles  of  stuff — and  then — you'll  lock  me 
up  in  a  quiet  little  ornamental  niche  in  your 


72  Letters  from  G.  G. 

heart  (for  I  don't  believe  you'd  throw  me  out 
altogether),  and  then — in  time,  you'll  softly 
and  silently  forget  me! 

Well,  please  tell  me  when  that  girl  appears, 
won't  you?  for  she's  bound  to  come,  you 
know,  though  I  hope  she  may  be  'way  off  in 
the  hazy,  misty  distance.  I  hope  she's  still 
in  swaddling  clothes;  or,  at  worst,  running 
around  in  sandals  and  frocks  'way  above  her 
knees. 

G.  G.,  BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK,  TO  R.  F.  AT 
HOME. 

Spring. 

Guinea ! 

Really!  for  an  intelligent  member  of  so- 
ciety you  do  occasionally  say  the  most  impos- 
sible things. 

I  rubbed  my  eyes  and  looked  again  at  your 
letter,  with  its  two  astounding  statements.  I 
held  it  near,  and  then  I  held  it  off  at  arm's 
length,  and  couldn't  make  it  look  other  than 
queer. 


Letters  from  G.  G.  73 

How  will  they  look  to  you,  your  words, 
when  I  quote  them,  and  you  see  them  with  a 
fresh  eye  in  bald  black  and  white,  after  a  fair- 
ish number  of  days? 

First:  "I  have  always  lived  among"  those 
'who  looked  up  to  me  in  one  way  or  another. 
Do  you  know  that  you  are  the  only  woman 
I  ever  knew  whom  I  respected  intellectually? 
That's  enough  for  autobiography.  Is  it  too 
ugly?" 

Ugly?  Oh,  you  poor  dear!  God  ha' 
mercy  on  you !  I  can  just  imagine  the  sort  of 
fool  women  you've  had  to  do  with.  Rich  as 
mud,  and  as  dull ;  or,  no,  not  dull,  for  Ameri- 
cans are  all  more  or  less  bright.  But  foot- 
less, maybe?  inconsequent?  And  oh,  how 
bad  for  you,  my  child,  to  have  'em  all  gazing 
up  at  you,  and  burning  frankincense  under 
your  nose!  You  are  to  be  wept  over  if  your 
lot  has  been  cast  among  women  whom  you  so 
scorned  as  to  make  you  respect  my  poor  head- 
piece by  comparison,  for,  Guinea,  frankly, 
you  know,  as  from  one  man  to  another,  the 


74  Letters  from  G.  G. 

head  ain't  where  I  come  out  strong.  You, 
maybe,  haven't  yet  got  on  to  how  many  kinds 
of  a  goose  I  can  be,  but  it  is  only  a  question 
of  time.  That  is  a  thing  no  amount  of  good 
will  or  modesty  can  conceal. 

And  now,  second:  "One  of  the  ways  I 
amuse  myself  is  gambling.  Are  you  addicted 
to  the  vice,  or  can't  you  afford  it?  I  don't 
mean  gambling  in  its  grosser  forms,  but  sim- 
ply poker  or  bridge,  among  one's  friends. 
Why  is  it  that  gambling  and  love-making  are 
the  only  pastimes  that  have  a  permanent  fas- 
cination for  adults  of  civilized  races?" 

Guinea  Golden !  Honey  Boy !  What  things 
to  say! 

No;  I  don't  gamble.  Not  that  I'm  a  bit 
too  good  to.  I  should,  I  dare  say,  gamble  if 
I  wanted  to.  I  do  plenty  of  other  things  I 
can't  afford  to,  only  it  would  bore  me  to 
death. 

But  to  look  upon  love-making  as  a  "pas- 
time"! just  another  form  of  amusement! 

Oh,   very   well!   make   love   to   me,   then. 


Letters  from  G.  G.  75 

Splendid  practice  against  the  day  that  girl  or 
other  comes  along.  And  it  would,  besides, 
be  a  nice  tour  de  force,  you  know,  something 
worthy  of  a  Cyrano,  to  make  love  to  a  myth 
half  a  continent  away.  Something  exquisitely 
dainty  in  appealing  to  her  heart  through  the 
brain  alone,  without  aid  of  look,  or  touch,  or 
speech,  with  neither  the  remembrance  nor  the 
anticipation  of  the  common  modes  of  cam- 
paign. 

Oh,  go  on,  Guinea,  do !  I'm  wild  to  see  how 
you'd  come  out  of  it!  You  epicure!  You 
lover  of  subtleties  !  There's  a  dish  ! 

Usher  in  the  Lover!  What  shall  his  name 
be?  Not  Romney,  for  it  is  not  Romney 
Flagg  who  is  to  be  my  love,  not  the  man  I 
knew  in  Paris.  I've  clean  forgotten  him. 
Nor  yet  Guinea  Golden,  he's  my  best  friend — 
my  mental  scrap-basket. 

I  know.  His  name,  drawn  from  the  same 
poem  as  Guinea's,  shall  be  Pleiad. 

"  I  had  a  star  in  heaven, 
One  Pleiad  was  his  name." 


76  Letters  from  G.  G. 

Of  course,  the  lost  Pleiad  was  a  gentleman ! 
And,  being  of  a  roving  disposition,  he  strayed 
away  from  his  bunch  of  lady  sisters  and — 
I've  found  him ! 

How  shall  I  wake  him  up,  this  star  of  a 
lover?  In  fairy  tales  and  Wagner  operas  they 
awaken  them  with  a  kiss  a  yard  or  more  long, 
don't  they? 

Well,  then,  herewith  I  send  you  a  kiss.  A 
kiss,  let  me  see — 

A  kiss  as  sweet  as  the  breath  of  pines. 

As  long  as  remorse. 

As  deep  as  the  flood  of  the  stars. 

As  elusive  as  the  scent  of  violets. 

As  gay  as  a  hollyhock. 

As  sad  as  twilight. 

As  fragrant  as  a  bed  of  ferns. 

As  burning  as  the  unexpected  touch  of  ice. 

As  pure  as  the  wind  on  the  mountain  top. 

As  tender  as  the  song  of  days. 

As  fresh  as  the  young  sense  of  sweet. 

As  perfect  as  a  pearl. 


Letters  from  G.  G.  77 

As  never-to-be-forgotten  as  the  first  sight 
of  the  sea. 

Now,  is  that  a  starter? 

Are  you  off? 

It  has  taken  me  full  half  an  hour  to  impro- 
vise the  above. 

I  don't  know  what  to  sign  myself.  Find 
me  a  name,  please,  a  Greek  one,  to  match 
Pleiad's. 

The  Night  After. 

Oh,  Guinea ! ! 

I  had  no  sooner  posted  that  wretched  letter 
this  morning  than  I  realized  that  I  ought 
never  to  have  written,  much  less  sent  it. 

Why,  why  I  couldn't  have  stopped  and 
questioned  the  wisdom  of  it  before  the  mouth 
of  the  letter-box  snapped  at  me,  I  don't  know. 
The  click  of  it  seemed  to  do  something  to  my 
head,  and  I  stood  stupidly  at  the  street  corner, 
saying  to  myself: 

"You  idiot!  What  will  Romney  Flagg 
think  of  you  and  your  audacious  invitation?" 


78  Letters  from  G.  G. 

What  devil  ever  prompted  it? 

Please,  dear  boy,  don't  think  ill  of  me  that  I 
should,  for  a  fantastic  hour,  have  offered  to 
exchange  my  good  friend  for  a  spurious  lover. 
Don't  think  that  I  don't  appreciate  the  value  of 
a  real  friend. 

(Doesn't  Olendorff,  the  infallible,  assure  us 
that  "Un  ami  sincere  et  vertueux  est  un  tre- 
sor!") 

You'll  wonder  what  in  the  world  my  object 
could  have  been.  Heavens!  one  doesn't  have 
to  look  very  far  for  an  object  to  almost  any- 
thing I  do  or  say.  Curiosity,  my  dear.  In- 
curable daughter-of-Eve  curiosity!  Just  the 
fun  of  seeing  what  the  other  fellow  will  do. 

We  are  told  that  there  are  three  games  at 
which  man  may  not  play — life,  love  and  death. 
Ah !  but  man  does  play  at  love.  We  all  do ; 
though  perhaps  not  in  cold  blood.  It  is  so 
hard  to  tell  where  the  play  leaves  off  and  the 
earnest  begins.  And  we  all  love  love  and 
lovers,  and  we  do  believe  them  for  the  nonce, 


Letters  from  G.  G.  79 

though  we  know  they  lie  when  they  do  swear 
that  they  are  made  of  truth! 

Please,  please,  please!  destroy  that  horrid 
letter,  and  forget  all  about  it. 

And  that  reminds  me.  I  don't  believe  I've 
ever  told  you  my  feeling  about  old  letters.  I 
mean  those  that  /  have  written.  I  simply 
can't  stand  the  thought  of  their  accumulating 
and  piling  up,  each  a  little  piece  of  me,  lying 
about  at  the  mercy  of  chance.  You  never  can 
tell  who  may  some  time  misread  them.  Fe- 
male relatives,  future  sweethearts,  lady  sla- 
vies,  executors. 

No  letter  has  a  right  to  live  after  it  has 
served  its  term,  and  the  term  of  a  letter  lasts 
until  the  following  one  has  been  received — no 
longer.  So,  if  you've  not  already  bravely 
killed  mine  after  answering  them,  won't  you 
please  light  a  little  bonfire? 

I've  had  occasion  to  see  old  letters  of  mine. 
It  was  like  seeing  my  own  ghost.  It  fright- 
ened and  sickened  me. 

Didn't  I  tell  you  I  was  all  sorts  of  a  fool? 


8o  Letters  from  G.  G. 

Well,  I'm  crawling  humbly  enough  about  it. 
That  ought  to  disarm  you. 

Meekly,  oh,  meekly! 

G.  G. 

G.  G.,  BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK,  TO  R.  F.  AT 
HOME. 

Spring. 

Just  in  time?  Or  too  soon?  Or  too  late? 
I  can't  tell  which. 

Ought  my  last  letter  to  have  gone  soon 
enough  to  dam  the  flood  of  letters  that  Pleiad 
was  sending,  or  should  it  not  have  gone  at  all, 
but  let  them  flood? 

Three  letters  from  Pleiad!  I  read  them 
over  and  over,  and  don't  know  whether  to  be 
sorry  I  have  them,  or  sorry  I  wrote  to  stop 
more  of  them.  Help  me,  Guinea,  to  decide. 
Had  I  waited  twelve  hours  longer,  I  never  in 
this  world  should  have  found  the  courage  to 
write,  countermanding  the  "audacious  invita- 
tion"; for,  nice  as  you  are,  Guinea,  you  know 
Pleiad  is  awful  fetching,  and  I  might  have 


Letters  from  G.  G.  81 

thrown  you  over  for  him.  I  might  not  have 
been  able  to  bring  myself  to  stick  to  you  quite 
so  faithfully  and  unfalteringly  as  I  did — as  I 
do! 

You  see,  after  all,  my  virtue  was  rewarded. 
I  sent  my  penitent  letter,  spite  of  certain  re- 
gretful twinges  at  surrendering  the  lover,  and 
then,  next  morning,  I  awoke  to  have  my  curi- 
osity satisfied  when  Pleiad's  first  note  was 
brought  me  with  my  breakfast.  Two  others 
followed  in  the  course  of  the  next  day. 

I  am  satisfied,  Guinea.  My  curiosity  as  to 
just  how  cleverly  you  would  carry  on  the 
game  is  appeased.  I  don't  think  you  need  any 
course  of  study  against  the  day  of  writing  to 
that  "girl  or  other."  I  think,  you  know,  that 
girl  is  going  to  be  in  luck,  for  Pleiad  will 
write  her  sweet  things  which  his  true  heart 
shall  dictate — not  faked  up  out  of  the  back  of 
his  head,  and  if  he  is  able  to  put  such  a  pret- 
tily sincere  ring  into  the  fascinating  lies  he 
tells  me,  how  delicious  he'll  be  when  he  is  in 
earnest.  Happy  girl! 


82  Letters  from  G.  G. 

I  quite  hate  to  brush  Pleiad  aside,  even 
though  I  like  you  best,  Guinea,  since  you  are 
real  and  he  is  imitation,  and  so  I'm  going  to 
ask  you  to  give  him  some  messages  from  me, 
will  you?  Tell  him,  in  the  first  place,  that  he 
is  very  dear,  and  then  tell  him  that  I  love  him 
(he  wished  to  be  reassured  as  to  that,  you 
know,  and  I  know  you  won't  be  jealous). 
Then  tell  him  that  he  must  never,  never, 
NEVER  attempt  to  see  me  face  to  face.  Can't 
he  see,  can't  you  see,  that  that  would  end 
everything,  spoil  everything?  Why,  it 
wouldn't  do  at  all!  Tell  him  to  continue  to 
think  of  me  as  his  "Lady  o'  Dreams,"  and 
then — tell  him — to  write  me  again — some  time 
— some  day — LONG  hence!  I  would  not  ex- 
change you  for  him,  but — he  might,  just,  once 
in  a  way,  send  word;  for  love  is  so  good — 
even  the  most  shadowy  semblance  of  it.  Do 
you  remember  Marguerite  in  "La  Dame  aux 
Camelias,"  when  she  speaks  to  Gustave,  who 
has  just  told  her  that  he  is  about  to  marry 
Nichette :  "Aime  la  bien — mon  bon  Gustave — 


Letters  from  G.  G.  83 

c'est  si  bon  d'etre  aime!"  It  is  good  to  be 
loved,  and  it  is  best  to  love. 

Tell  him  that  I  shall  think  of  him  whenever 
I  see  "lilacs  glimmering  white  in  the  moon- 
light, or  burning  with  mysterious  red  glow 
under  the  lamps,"  that  I  shall  think,  of  him 
whenever  I  am  arrested  by  that  annual  "in- 
tense, instantaneous,  penetrating  sense  of 
other  springs  gone  by." 

Tell  him  that  I  shall  be  with  him  whenever 
I  see,  or  hear,  or  feel  anything  beautiful  and 
sacred,  and  so  shall,  in  a  way,  share  it  with 
him. 

And  that  is  enough  of  messages  for  Pleiad 
— and  that  last  is  rather  a  large  order ! 

And  did  you  think  the  kiss  theatrical?  It 
hadn't  struck  me.  I  should  call  it  rhetorical 
rather  than  dramatic,  wouldn't  you?  It 
seemed  to  trouble  Pleiad,  and  he  wished  to  be 
reassured  about  that,  too,  but  I  don't  see  how 
I  can  reassure  him,  for  I  don't  believe  he 
would  have  considered  a  literary  kiss  any  im- 


84  Letters  from  G.  G. 

provement  whatever  on  a  theatrical  one,  do 
you? 

And  about  that  kiss!  What  amusing  dis- 
coveries editors  of  collected  letters  must  often 
make !  Were  any  one  to  attempt  that  sort  of 
thing  with  my  general  correspondence,  after  I 
am  long  dead,  he  would  chuckle  as  he  ran 
across  that  kiss  in  its  various  stages  of  evolu- 
tion. It  started  out  in  life  a  modest  little  thing 
of  only  three  attributes;  it  swelled  to  five — 
and  see  to  what  proportions  Pleiad's  had 
jumped.  And  that  may  not  be  the  end  of  it! 
You  never  can  tell.  Pen  kisses  are  most  serv- 
iceable assets. 

Well,  good-night,  Guinea,  Golden  Friend, 
for  whom  I  resigned  the  lover  who  was  not. 

What  a  pretty  name  he  found  me!  I  hate 
to  resign  that,  too. 

It  is  a  bit  difficult  to  write  it  in  its  Greek 
lettering.  So  I  sign 

PHILOTA. 


Letters  from  G.  G.  85 

G.  G.,  BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK,  TO  R.  F.  AT 
HOME. 

Spring. 
(G.  G.  speaks  very  loud:) 

Make  him  stop,  Guinea !  Make  him  stop ! 
or  soon  I  shall  have  no  voice,  but  an  exasper- 
ated squeal  in  which  to  bid  you  tell  him  to 
stop.  Who  is  he?  What  is  this  Pleiad  of 
the  entrancing  verses  and  the  darling  letters? 
What  is  this  spirit  I  have  conjured  up?  Who 
is  it  that  has  power  to  make  me  dream  for 
three  whole  days  and  nights,  and  long  to  come 
from  "my  far  castle  in  the  sky"  and  confess, 

"While  cheeks  flush  red  and  hearts  beat  fast, 
It  is  so  fair,  the  Earth!" 

My  castle  isn't  in  the  sky  (shades  of  Broad- 
way) !  Nor  are  mine  "star  flowers,"  but  oh, 
how  prettily  he  put  it,  Guinea! 

Tell  him  to  stop !  Make  him  stop !  He  has 
nothing  to  do  with  you  or  me  or  the  case.  He 
is  a  myth — a  fabrication.  He  has  nothing  to 
do  with  my  friend  of  the  frank  and  truthful 


86  Letters  from  G.  G. 

temper,  and  comfortable  understanding,  my 
amico  simpatico,  even  less  with  that  shadowier 
personage  of  years  ago,  the  big,  imposing, 
something  chill  neighbor-at-table,  whose  eyes 
I  never  remember  to  have  seen  smile. 

Good  gracious!     No!     He  is  so  far  from 
you  both,  he  belongs  to  another  race. 
(G.  G.  whispers  very  low:) 

Lordy !     How  I  should  love  to  think  that  I 
should  wake  up  to  find  another  long  letter  in 
the  morning,  and  the  next  morning,  and  the 
next,  and  the  next — and  all  mornings! 
(G.  G.  shouts:) 

BUT  IT  MUST  NOT,  SHALL  NOT  BE!  for  what, 
oh,  who  is  Pleiad? 

G.  G.,  B'WAY,  TO  R.  F.  AT  HOME. 

Spring. 
NO! 

The  pretty  little  comedy  of  Love-Me-Love- 
Me-Not  is  over. 

OVER!     Leaving  no  regrets  behind,  tho' 
I  can't  help  sighing  at  the  thought  of  all  those 


Letters  from  G.  G.  87 

potential  unwritten  letters  of  Pleiad's,  which 
he  assures  me  were  to  have  shown  even  more 
his  versatility,  were  to  have  been  yet  tenderer, 
more  impassioned,  more  light-hearted! 

Ah,  me!  Do  you  know  how  rare  they  are, 
the  men  who  can  write  love  letters?  Pic- 
turesque, entrancing  ones,  I  mean.  Not  one 
in  seven  thousand  knows  how  to  write,  or, 
for  that  matter,  say  more  than  "I  love  you," 
and  emphasize  it  by  repetition  ad  lib.,  and  by 
proof  of  deed,  maybe.  The  rarity  of  one  who 
can  ring  the  soft  fifty  changes  on  that  same 
theme  "I  love  you!" 

And  Pleiad  could!     ...     did! 

BUT     .     .     .     now  listen: 

There  was  once  a  Lady  and  a  Bear. 

This  Lady  was  wont  to  hold  converse  with 
this  Bear,  (he  was  a  Polar  Bear,)  principally 
about  Honey,  for  even  Ladies  and  Bears  have 
some  tastes  in  common.  One  day  the  Bear 
inadvertently  spoke  of  Dancing,  and  the  Lady 
in  derision  cried  out:  "Dance,  then,  since  you 
speak  so  lightly  of  the  Art !" 


88  Letters  from  G.  G. 

Well,  the  Bear  danced,  and  his  perform- 
ance greatly  astonished  the  Lady,  so  much  so 
that  she  was  pleased  to  say  that  he  danced 
very  prettily — indeed,  she  joined  the  dance 
herself  for  a  measure  or  two.  But  ere  it  was 
fairly  started  the  Lady,  who  had  expected  en- 
tertainment of  a  different  sort,  exclaimed: 
"Hold — it  is  unseemly — I  spoke  but  in 
jest!"  And  the  Bear,  who  was  a  wise  Bear, 
I  trust,  and  knew  as  well  as  the  Lady 
whither  such  Dances  led  .  .  .  obediently 
ceased. 

Now  when  it  was  all  over  .  .  .  neither 
could  tell  whence  came  the  music  to  which 
they  had  danced  .  .  .  and  sometimes  the 
Music  haunted  her  .  .  .  and  him  ... 
But  pray  remember:  The  Dance  was  over! 

Yes,  it  is  hard  to  be  reconciled  to  Pleiad 
and  Philota  being  lost  and  gone  forever. 

Departed  spirits  are  said  to  return  once  a 
year.  We  have  an  All  Saints'  Day  and  an 
All  Souls'  Day.  Why  not  an  All  Lovers'  Day  ? 
One  on  which  our  Lovers  shali  come  back  in 


Letters  from  G.  G.  89 

the  form  of  one  of  those  letters  that  "were  to 
have  been." 

They  might  write  to  one  another  on  that 
same  day,  and  it  should  be  their  perfumed 
task,  like  thrifty  bees  throughout  the  year,  to 
collect  honey  from  all  that  there  is  of  sweet 
with  which  to  freight  that  one  letter  with  rap- 
ture. 

Say,  when  falls  All  Lovers'  Day? 

When  the  lilacs  are  in  flower? 

G.  G.,  B'WAY,  TO  R.  F.,  AT  HOME. 

Spring. 

Two  All  Lovers'  Days  in  the  year?  You 
are  right.  A  year  is  a  long  space  to  wait. 

Very  well.  .  .  .  The  first  Memorial 
Day  shall  fall  at  the  time  of  withered  leaves. 

It  is  certainly  meet  and  very  right  that  as 
to  each  saint  one  day  in  the  year  is  dedicated, 
so  two  days  in  the  year  should  be  devoted  to 
lovers,  for  are  there  not  in  each  case  two 
lovers  ? 


90  Letters  from  G.  G. 

G.  G.,  AT  HOME,  TO  R.  F.,  AT  HOME. 

Summer. 

Oh,  Guinea!  It's  so  good  to  be  home 
again.  I  was  so  worn  out  when  I  left  New 
York,  I  was  dizzy.  But  immediately  I 
started,  all  seemed  to  fall  from  me  like  a  gar- 
ment. Daisy  blew  me  a  stateroom  on  the 
train,  I  hated  so  to  put  Mick  in  the  baggage- 
car,  and  on  the  road  I  felt  like  a  weed  in  a 
summer  shower,  and  was  almost  myself  before 
arriving  in  Boston. 

Dear  Boston !  I  believe  for  the  first  time  in 
my  life,  though  I  am  native  there  and  to  the 
manner  born,  I  did  it  justice,  and  fell  victim 
to  its  charm.  It  was  so  restful,  so  seemly, 
civilized  and  decent,  after  that  delirious,  ill- 
bred  New  York. 

I  felt  like  an  Elegy  in  a  Country  Church- 
yard. 

I  had  myself  taken  to  the  Pop  Concert  as 
being  the  most  devilish  thing  the  town  af- 
forded, to  let  myself  down  easy,  and  I  almost 
wept  for  tenderness.  On  the  stage — those 


Letters  from  G.  G.  91 

dear  old  Symphony  Orchestra  duffers  whose 
faces  I've  known  from  a  child — there  they 
were,  much  the  same  as  ever,  playing  like  the 
Lord's  own  angels,  and  all  about,  orderly  non- 
descript-looking people  at  the  little  tables, 
drinking  proper  drinks  and,  one  felt  sure, 
talking  such  proper  talk ! 

And  then  the  Public  Library.  I  had  to  go 
and  have  a  look  at  it,  and  on  the  benches  in 
the  court  there  sat  the  same  studious,  rumi- 
native, scholarly  looking  folks  as  of  yore; 
somehow  they  only  grow  in  Boston. 

Certainly  the  flavor  of  Boston  is  mighty 
sweet  and  dignified,  tho'  it  maybe  does 
pucker  up  one's  mouth  a  little  bit.  The 
Puritan  Gladys  was  soothed  and  comforted,  as 
the  Bohemian  is  intoxicated  by  New  York. 

But  it  is  good  to  be  Home !  It  makes  me  so 
deeply  grateful  for  having  two  ears,  two  eyes, 
a  nose  and  a  mouth,  also  two  legs  and  a  love 
of  walking.  The  days  are  one  sweet  succes- 
sion of  ...  the  same  old  things.  You 
know  what  I  do  down  here. 


92  Letters  from  G.  G. 

And,  oh,  Guinea,  the  hours  of  lying  in  the 
cool  wind  on  the  long  empty  sand,  listen- 
ing, and  watching  the  sea's  innumerable 
laughter ! 

G.  G.,  AT  HOME,  TO  R.  F.,  AT  HOME. 

Summer. 

Don't  talk  to  me  about  "Tears,  idle  tears  i" 
Tears  idle  ?  Just  listen  here :  If  a  child  wants 
anything  badly,  what,  from  its  cradle  up, 
does  it  do  but  cry  for  it?  And  doesn't  it 
the  better  part  of  the  time  get  it?  I'm  not 
saying  that  it  is  in  all  cases  right  it  should, 
but  that  it  does.  Neither  am  I  saying  that 
throughout  life  it  is  to  stand  before  the  object 
of  its  desire,  shed  tears,  and  then  reach  out 
its  hand  and  receive  the  prize.  Wouldn't  it 
be  funny  to  see  people  at  every  street  corner 
and  show  window  gazing  with  tearful  eyes  at 
whatever  it  was  they  wanted ! 

No,  but  tears  do  seem  to  stand  as  symbol 
for  wanting  very  much  something  that  one 
seems  in  danger  of  not  getting.  And  some- 


Letters  from  G.  G.  93 

how,  if  we  seriously  want  things  enough  to 
cry  if  we  don't  get  them,  it  seems  likely  that 
some  one,  other  things  being  equal,  will  at 
sight  of  our  tears  provide  us  with  our  heart's 
desire. 

I  know  of  two  cases,  one  that  of  a  man  and 
one  of  a  woman,  both  of  them  about  as  far  re- 
moved from  weaklings,  from  incompetents,  as 
anything  you  can  picture,  both  of  them  pillars 
of  society,  real  ones,  and  they  each  at  a  crisis, 
got  what  they  wanted  (the  man  wanted  a 
large  loan,  the  woman  wanted  a  job)  by  being 
unable  to  keep  back  the  tears  when  they  were 
told  they  couldn't  be  accommodated  with 
what  they  knew  they  had  to  have. 

Not  long  ago  I,  myself,  had  to  do  a  very 
large  piece  of  work.  I  had  to  make  a  house 
in  great  haste.  It  was  a  complicated  piece  of 
business,  and  there  were  times  when  it  seemed 
as  if  I  had  undertaken  the  impossible. 

Nothing  helped  me  through  tight  places  so 
often  as  Mirabeau's  good  word :  "Impossi- 
ble? Ne  me  dites  jamais  ce  bete  de  mot!" 


94  Letters  from  G.  G. 

Every  one's  advice  was :  "Do  your  best,  and 
never  mind  about  the  result.  If  you  fail  it 
won't  be  your  fault,  so  don't  worry  about  it." 

I've  been  guilty  of  giving  that  advice  my- 
self. I  never  shall  again ;  it  irritated  me  so  to 
hear  it.  What!  do  my  best  and  then  be  re- 
signed to  failure?  Scarcely. 

Do  my  best,  yes ;  but  care,  care,  CARE  !  Care 
so  much  that  one  dismal,  drizzly,  sticky  Tues- 
day morning,  when  everything  either  went 
wrong  or  was  at  a  dead  standstill,  I  retired  to 
my  tents  and  sat  on  the  floor  and  howled  like 
a  fool,  in  full  hearing  of  the  sixty  workmen 
about  the  place. 

I  didn't  do  it  with  an  eye  to  dramatic  ef- 
fect. I  had  to  do  it  because  the  case  was  des- 
perate and  my  heart  was  breaking.  That 
house  had  to  be  done,  done  most  remarkably 
well,  and  just  as  quickly,  nay,  quicker  than 
possible.  It  was  literally  a  case  of  life  and 
death,  and  there  seemed  no  power  on  earth 
that  could  make  those  sixty  carpenters,  paint- 
ers, paperers,  electricians,  plumbers,  and  Ital- 


Letters  from  G.  G.  95 

ians  at  work  on  the  grounds  realize  it  and  feel 
it  but  the  sound  of  my  sure-enough  crying. 

The  various  heads  of  departments  got  to- 
gether thereupon,  and  when  I  came  down, 
sodden  eyed,  I  found  them  holding  council  of 
war.  As  I  reappeared  the  contractor,  dear 
man,  spoke,  nervously  rubbing  the  back 
of  his  head  with  his  hand:  "Well  .  .  . 
well  .  .  .  well  I  guess  we  just  got  to 
keep  a-goin'." 

From  that  hour  I  needed  no  longer  stalk 
the  place  like  a  caged  panther  urging  and 
hurrying  on  the  work.  I  knew  that  every 
man  had  full  steam  on.  And  they  "kep' 
a-goin'  "  until  the  thing  was  done. 

Nor  need  you  think  that  it  was  because  I 
was  a  woman  and  these  workingmen  had 
chivalrous  hearts  in  their  sides.  They  were 
chivalrous  gentlemen,  but  though  I  may  be 
better  and  wiser,  I'm  not  half  so  young  or 
good  looking  as  I  used  to  be. 

Now  what  I  mean  is  that  it  doesn't  matter 
what  anybody  wants.  I'll  repeat  that,  I  don't 


96  Letters  from  G.  G. 

know  how  else  to  be  specially  emphatic.  It 
doesn't  matter  what  anybody  wants,  whether 
it  is  a  cab  or  a  meal,  or  a  fortune,  or  a  hus- 
band, or  to  be  good,  if  they  want  it  enough 
they  will  get  it,  whatever  it  is.  If  they  don't 
get  it,  it  is  because  they  didn't  want  it  enough. 
And  as  Goethe  says  something-  somewhere  to 
the  effect  that  as  what  we  want  in  youth  we 
shall  assuredly  come  by  in  age,  and  Emerson 
adds  that  such  being  the  case  it  behooves  us 
to  be  careful  what  we  elect  to  want,  so  I  say 
that  as  we  are  bound  to  get  what  we  want,  if 
we  want  it  enough  not  to  be  able  to  help  cry- 
ing for  it,  if  it  looks  as  if  we  couldn't  have 
it,  we've  got  to  be  very  particular  what  we 
cry  about ! 
Tears  idle?  Tears  are  as  busy  as  a  bee! 

G.  G.,  HOME,  R.  F.,  HOME. 

Summer. 

I  write  you  to-day  in  great  joy — jubilant! 
I  have  found  me  a  great  new  friend,  and 
what  is  more  splendid  than  a  new  friend? 


Letters  from  G.  G.  97 

You  have  said  that  you  felt  yourself  free 
to  tell  me  things,  feeling  sure  of  a  certain 
shadowy  understanding  and  sympathy.  I 
must  do  the  same,  for  I  want  to  shout  to  some 
one  in  my  glee  over  my  great  "find." 

Years  and  years  ago  some  one  gave  Kitty 
the  works  of  Walt  Whitman.  I  opened  them, 
tasted  them,  and  promptly  spat  them  out,  and, 
with  the  arrogant  self-sufficiency  of  extreme 
youth,  condemned  them  utterly,  and  relegated 
them  to  a  high,  dark,  unreachable  mental 
shelf. 

This  spring,  in  a  collection  of  verse,  I  ran 
across  the  "Song  of  the  Open  Road/'  That 
was  enough.  When  I  got  here,  I  took  down 
the  exiled  volumes,  and  oh,  my  dear,  I  could 
talk  about  them  all  night,  only  what's  the  use, 
when  they  are  there,  and  speak  for  themselves 
louder  than  any  one  can  for  them? 

He  is  like  this  Cape  landscape,  all  big  sky, 
and  big  sea,  and  great  booming  wind  and  surf. 
He  gives  one  such  a  sense  of  freedom  and 
joy!  How  he  does  strip  the  rags  from  every 


98  Letters  from  G.  G. 

scare-crow.  He  "wears  his  hat  as  he  pleases, 
indoors  or  out !"  How  great  and  fearless  and 
loving  he  is!  How  he  embraces  everything, 
from  the  highest  to  the  meanest  object  in  cre- 
ation. How  universal,  how  childlike  and  naif 
and  humorous  he  is !  How  vigorous  and  wise 
and  calm ! 

Is  it  not  beautiful,  the  way  people  inevitably 
come  to  one,  when  one  is  prepared  to  receive 
them?  "Oh,  believe  as  thou  livest,  that  every 
sound  that  is  spoken  over  the  round  world 
which  thou  oughtest  to  hear  will  vibrate  in 
thine  ear.  Every  proverb,  every  book,  every 
word  that  belongs  to  thee  for  aid  or  comfort 
shall  surely  come  home  through  open  or  wind- 
ing passages.  Every  friend  whom  not  thy 
fantastic  will,  but  the  great  and  tender  heart 
within  thee  craveth  .  .  ." 

And  all  the  rest  of  it. 

I  don't  know  which  is  nicer,  the  way  wise 
people  like  that  one  find  out  things  and  tell 
one  all  about  them,  or  the  way  one  finds  out 
the  truth  for  oneself  in  course  of  time.  Seems 


Letters  from  G.  G.  99 

as  if — give  us  time,  and  there  is  time  a-plenty 
with  all  eternity  ahead — we  were,  after  all, 
stupid  and  stubborn  and  lazy  as  we  mostly  are, 
all  going  to  learn  all  about  everything.  How 
good  to  eventually  know  all  about  it,  this  per- 
plexing world  with  its  blind  alleys  and  black 
holes!  And  W.  W.  makes  you  feel  so  sure 
that  it  is  very  right,  as  indeed  do  all  the  great 
fellows,  don't  they? 

When  I  come  down  here,  my  delight  is  pull- 
ing down  great  armfuls  of  my  cronies  from 
their  shelves,  and.  carrying  them  out  to  spend 
the  day  in  the  hammock  when  all  the  chores 
are  done.  And  there  I  dip  and  browse  here 
and  there,  reviving  old  impressions,  occa- 
sionally gathering  in  a  new  one.  .  .  . 

There  are  two  others  beside  W.  W.  whom  I 
specially  love,  and  whom  you  must  love,  for 
one  loves  one's  friends  to  love  one's  friends. 
One  is  Emily  Dickinson,  the  other  the 
Shropshire  Lad,  A.  E.  Housman  is  his  name. 

She  also  is  one  of  those  unhampered  ones, 
who  recognize  no  convention,  is  most  espe- 


ioo          Letters  from  G.  G. 

cially  herself.  She  has  a  most  insinuating 
charm,  combinations  of  words  of  hers  creep 
into  one's  brain  and  become  fixed  in  one's  vo- 
cabulary, and  no  others  will  express  the  shade 
of  meaning  so  well. 

As  for  the  Shropshire  Lad !  The  things  he 
makes  you  feel  by  saying  the  simplest  things 
in  the  simplest  way!  Once  you  know  him, 
never  again  can  you  see  mirroring  water 
without  saying  to  yourself: 

"Ah  fair  enough  are  sky  and  plain, 

But  I  know  fairer  far; 
They  are  as  beautiful  again 
That  in  the  water  are  .  .  ." 

Nor  will  a  spring  pass  without  your  realiz- 
ing: 

"Since  to  look  at  things  in  bloom 

Fifty  Springs  are  little  room, 
About  the  woodlands  I  will  go, 
To  see  the  cherry  hung  with  snow." 

G.  G.,  HOME,  R.  F.,  HOME. 

Summer. 

What  you  say  of  the  "miraculous  quality" 
being  a  test  of  poetry,  only  goes  one  step 


Letters  from  G.  G.  101 

further  to  fix  my  idea  of  W.  W.  I  don't 
know  that  I  have  thought  of  his  things  as 
poetry  exactly — chants  rather. 

You  don't  find  any  miracle  in  them?  I 
don't  know  what  it  is  more  fit  to  call  the 
buoyant  elation  with  which  I  am  filled  after 
reading  him. 

You  must  know  that  I  don't  swallow  him 
whole,  that  I,  too,  wince  at  much  of  him,  that 
his  language  and  construction  grate,  that  I 
am  tortured  by  this  vulgar  phraseology,  but 
.  .  .  as  he  himself  says: 

'The  words  of  my  book  .  .  .  nothing, 
The  drift  of  it  ...  everything!" 

And  the  drift  of  it!  How  it  makes  one 
walk  more  erect,  breathe  deeper ! 

Don't  call  him  insincere!  How  can  you? 
Laugh  at  his  "rude  barbaric  yawp"  and  wel- 
come! But  sincerity  you  shall  grant  him! 
Could  anything  but  a  life  of  love  of  his  fel- 
lows have  produced  his  work?  You  don't 
believe  he  loved  them  all  the  time?  Are  vou 


IO2  Letters  from  G.  G. 

going  to  wonder  at  that?  By  what  will  you 
judge  people?  Their  low  or  their  high  water 
marks?  Every  human  creature  must  have 
hours,  days  of  discouragement  with  himself 
and  every  one  else,  of  mental  and  spiritual 
nausea.  Even  "Nature  sometimes  like  us  is 
caught  without  her  diadem" — but  it  isn't 
fair  to  throw  that  at  them  as  long  as  that  is 
not  the  mood  they  admit,  or  foster,  or  cher- 
ish, or  entertain,  and  certainly  W.  W.  is  pretty 
consistent  in  his  Hymns  of  Praise ! 

You  know,  your  attitude  with  regard  to  him 
makes  me  think  of  that  of  the  Man  of  Sense 
in  a  verse  I  saw  long  ago,  written  a  propos 
of  the  Yellow  Book.  The  last  lines  of  it  ran : 

"Some  said  'How  clever,'  some,  'How  vile,' 
The  Man  of  Sense  'twixt  yawn  and  smile 

Just  voted  it  a  bore! 
This  Yellow  Book  of  meaning  dim 
A  yellow  nuisance  was  to  him, 

And  it  was  nothing  more." 

Now  I  think  of  it,  I'm  ready  to  bet  large 
moneys  that  as  you  don't  like  W.  W.,  you  did 


Letters  from  G.  G.  103 

like  the  contents  of  the  Yellow  Book,  and  all 
that  harvest  of  funny  little  Chap-books  that 
flourished  at  the  same  period.  Deny  it ! 

I'm  glad  you  like  Emily  Dickinson  some- 
what and  loved  the  Shropshire  Lad,  even 
though  you  quarrel  with  his  unmanly  much 
talk  of  dead  men.  It  seems  to  me  rather  in 
character.  He  is  but  a  Lad,  and  don't  you 
think  the  late  teens  and  early  twenties  given 
to  that  sort  of  harping  ?  It  is  the  saddest  time 
in  life,  the  most  likely  to  be  morbid.  Dear, 
dear!  When  I  remember  my  black  moods  at 
nineteen!  When  I  was  so  acutely  aware  of 
my  dual  nature,  of  being  rather  a  good  sort 
of  a  little  willing  Horse  hitched  in  harness 
with  a  balky  little  brute  of  a  Donkey.  When 
I  think  of  the  agony  I  went  through  before  I 
got  accustomed  to  driving  that  ill-assorted 
team,  Myself,  I  wonder  I'm  here  writing  to 
you  unsuicided.  Yes,  there  was  a  bottle  of 
allopathic  aconite  in  mother's  medicine  cup- 
board. I  have  spent  hours  in  dark  brooding 
over  that  bottle.  Don't  laugh  other  than  in- 


IO4          Letters  from  G.  G. 

diligently  at  the  moods  of  Things    in    their 
Teens. 

I  have  a  theory,  do  you  know,  that  one  feels 
older  at  the  end  of  one  decade  than  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  next.  One  is  old  for  one  class 
at  twenty-nine,  at  thirty-one  one  is  young  for 
the  next.  I  have  an  uncanny  foreboding  that 
at  sixty-one  I  shall  feel  so  juvenile  that  I  shall 
up  and  marry  a  boy  in  his  twenties  who  will 
beat  me,  and  sell  all  me  jools,  and  serve  me 
jolly  right. 

To  PLEIAD,  AT  THE  TIME  OF  FALLING  LEAVES. 

PLEIAD  BELOVED!  I  could  not  write  be- 
fore. I  tried,  but  there  was  so  much  I  dared 
not  tell  you,  the  repression  of  which  made  my 
words  sound  hollow  and  perfunctory.  But 
since  your  letter  has  come  I  have  to  write. 
C'est  plus  fort  que  moil  And  why  should  one 
hesitate  to  speak  one's  heart  to  a  star?  "In 
their  distance  stars  are  near  us,  while  in  their 
nearness  men  are  far." 


Letters  from  G.  G.  105 

Oh,  my  Love!  You  can  never  know  what 
your  letter  meant  to  me.  How  I  longed  for 
it,  craved  it,  died  waiting  for  it !  How  should 
you?  You  could  not  guess  all  that  it  would 
bring  me.  You  could  not  know  that  I  was 
holding  out  beseeching  hands  to  you  for  help, 
help  from  my  own  weakness.  That  at  night, 
out  under  the  silent  stars,  I  was  calling  to 
you:  "Pleiad!  Pleiad!  Help  me!  Do  not 
let  me  fall  into  that  most  grim  of  horrors — a 
loveless  marriage!" 

I  have  times  of  knowing  that  it  cannot  come 
to  pass.  I  know  it  is  impossible  that  I  being 
I  should  finally  surrender.  But  the  pressure 
is  so  cruel  at  times.  The  force  of  gold  in 
dazzling  quantities,  and — should  I  blush  to 
own  it?  Your  Philota  is  not  above  a  love  of 
ease,  and  the  good  things  of  life,  and  the 
frocks  and  frills  and  exquisite  appointments 
that  go  with  a  great  fortune. 

I  know  it  cannot  really  happen  finally,  but 
at  times,  Pleiad,  I  am  so  afraid,  so  afraid! 
For  the  strength  of  the  chain  is  that  of  its 


io6          Letters  from  G.  G. 

weakest  link,  and  perpetual  dropping  finally 
wears  away  a  stone,  even  a  stony  heart,  and 
the  will  opposing  mine  is  one  used  to  over- 
riding mighty  obstacles. 

And  so  I  called  to  you,  "Help  me  to 
strengthen  the  tottering  bridge  of  my  will, 
that  it  may  carry  me  over  this  black  pitfall. 
Make  me  to  realize  what  Love  and  Life  might 
mean,  spent  upon  the  heart  of  one  whose 
qualities  of  mind  and  soul  could  fill  the  entire 
imagination!  My  Phantom  Lover!  Hold  me 
with  arms  more  restraining,  with  voice  more 
commanding,  with  eyes  more  magnetic,  with 
lips  more  compelling  than  any  of  mortal  man 
of  flesh !" 

And  then  .  .  .  thank  the  generous 
gods,  your  letter  came!  Your  wonderful  let- 
ter, answering  all  my  prayer,  and  making  this 
a  different  world ! 

The  hours  that  you  picture,  spent  together 
away  from  everything  and  everybody,  entirely 
at  one,  without  shadow  of  past  or  to  come 
Paradise ! 


Letters  from  G.  G  107 

No,  beloved,  nor  soon,  nor  late,  nor  ever 
shall  we  meet.  I  could  not  face  you  now. 
Last  year  it  might  still  have  been.  I  could 
have  borne  it  smiling,  but  not  now.  We  shall 
never  see  one  another.  Were  you  in  the  next 
room,  and  I  hungering  and  aching  for  you,  I 
would  turn  and  run  away.  How  I  should 
dread  to  know  that — well,  my  pen  was 
mightier  than  I!  Should  you  not  be  sorry 
for  me  were  I  to  find  myself,  my  words,  and 
smiles  not  strong  to  equal  my  own  written 
ones? 

No ;  if  we  were  to  have  met,  it  should  have 
been  long  ages  past,  maybe  when  we  lived  in 
the  glory  of  Greece.  Then  we  would  have  met 
and  loved  in  deep-shaded  laurel  groves.  Or 
when  you  were  the  king  of  Babylon  and  I  was 
a  Christian  Slave.  Or  later,  in  the  tragic  Mid- 
dle Ages,  or  even  in  the  vapid  period  of  pow- 
der and  patches  we  should  have  wandered 
about  the  moonlit  paths  of  a  trim  garden  and 
exchanged  superficial,  easily  broken  vows. 

But     .     .     .    how    should    we    meet    to- 


io8          Letters  from  G.  G. 

day?  In  the  first  place,  it  would  not  in  the 
very  least  be  you  and  I  who  should  meet,  but 
those  two  very  commonplace  young  mortals, 
G.  G.  and  R.  F. 

He  in  irreproachable  cloth  and  linen  would 
call  at  8.30  of  an  evening  upon  her  in  her  best 
gown.  They  would  meet  in  a  warm,  com- 
fortable, much  berugged,  bepictured,  be- 
cushioned  lamplit  room,  meet  with  the  short, 
emphatic  American  handshake.  He  would 
sit  at  ease  in  a  big  armchair,  she  on  a  divan, 
and  there  for  two  or  three  hours  they  would 
discuss  everything  under  the  light  of  Heaven, 
from  the  price  of  coal,  and  comparative  merits 
of  this  or  that  brand  of  cigarettes,  through 
plays,  books,  music,  pictures,  sociology,  phil- 
osophy, and  on  out  of  sight  through  psychol- 
ogy. Then  again  the  hearty  good  comrade 
handshake,  "et  puis,  'Bonsoir' !"  and  there  an 
end! 

Oh,  Pleiad!  say  you  would  not  have  it  so? 
Let  us  remain  wise  for  them !  Our  wisdom  is 
not  folly.  You  must  not  call  it  so! 


Letters  from  G.  G.  109 

We  shall  not  see  pictures,  hear  music,  read 
together  in  your  dear  blue  room.  You  will 
not  talk  to  me  and  tell  me  the  things  you  never 
dared  tell  any  one.  We  shall  not  walk  or 
ride  together,  nor  travel  and  see  the  strange 
far  lands  and  the  walled  cities  crowned  with 
towers  in  the  dark  hills  of  Umbria.  Nor 
shall  we  watch  the  sunrise,  or  the  moon  drop 
low  upon  the  water.  But,  shall  we  not  in  a 
sense  divide  every  beauty  in  the  universe? 
Will  not  the  nightly  wonder  of  the  first  star  in 
Heaven  bring  our  thoughts  rushing  together? 
You  will  not  kiss  me — but  can  you  not  imag- 
ine it  more  vividly  than  another  could 
achieve  ? 

Above  all,  do  not  call  our  love  wasted! 
When  was  Love — True  Love — ever  wasted  ? 

You  say  you  need  me  ...  need  me 
.  .  .  But,  dear  one,  you  have  me !  You 
and  you  only  know  Philota.  For  what  is 
Philota?  A  Fancy  hovering  in  the  Mind  of 
a  Shadow.  And  what  is  Pleiad?  A  Dream 
living  in  the  Heart  of  a  Myth. 


i  io          Letters  from  G.  G. 

And  is  it  not  of  all  things  the  most  wonder- 
ful and  radiant  and  mysterious  that  you,  your 
very  self,  you  who  are  emphatically  not  R.  F., 
that  you  who  are  the  very  breath  and  soul  of 
Love  should  be  turning  the  tide  and  shaping 
events  in  the  life  of  G.  G.  by  making  for  your- 
self an  existence  in  the  spirit  of  Philota  ? 

The  marvel  of  it !  For  so  it  is !  You  have 
— you  are  saving  her  from —  ...  let  me 
not  think  from  what! 

You  say  you  love  me  so  greatly  that  it  does 
not  matter  whether  I  love  you  or  not — but — 
my  own — I  do  ...  I  do  ...  I  do  ... 

G.  G.  TO  R.  F. 

Autumn. 

Tut— Tut!  No  fair.  That's  not  in  the 
Game — not  until  Lilac  Time ! 

G.  G.,  B'WAY,  R.  F.  IN  CALIFORNIA. 

Winter. 

The  way  winters  have  of  coming  to  an  end 
before  they  have  more  than  fairly  begun! 


Letters  from  G.  G.  in 

And  nothing  to  show  for  them !  Yet  here  is 
spring  almost  in  sight.  Month  after  month 
has  gone  by,  bringing  no  great  change  in  this 
existence  so  ever  changing  in  minor  details, 
full  of  variety — yet  variety  of  one  order  and 
weight,  bringing  no  very  fresh  or  vital  new 
element  or  impression. 

I'm  so  glad  to  hear  you  are  in  California. 
When  this  letter  reaches  you  you  will  have 
had  many  weeks'  sun  bath ;  it  is  leaving  me 
in  a  belated  blizzard,  which  makes  your  place 
sound  all  the  lovelier.  And  you  are  making 
an  Italian  Garden!  And  in  California,  as  I 
remember  it,  things  grow  for  you  while  you 
wait,  overnight,  so  that  you'll  see  the  result  of 
your  many  inventions  and  toil,  and  not  your 
descendants  alone  after  you. 

I  was  in  California  once,  in  your  very  town, 
a  whole  winter  long.  I  wore  nothing  for  my 
five  months  out  there  but  riding  clothes  and 
evening  dress. 

I  learned  to  ride  out  there.  I  was  a  kid  of 
seventeen,  and  another  kid  taught  me  to  do  all 


ii2          Letters  from  G.  G. 

sorts  of  circus  tricks.  I  blanch  at  the  mem- 
ory of  the  things  I  dared  do  at  his  bidding. 
We  rode  every  day  and  all  day,  sometimes  en 
cavalcade,  with  lots  of  people,  but  mostly 
with  two  or  three  others,  or  by  ourselves. 

And  the  horse  I  had!  Oh,  my  Billy,  my 
Billy!  I  wonder  if  he's  still  living  and  rac- 
ing about  with  some  other  girl  on  his  back! 
Ask  for  him,  will  you,  at  Cardozo's  Stable, 
and  give  him  sugar  and  spice  and  everything 
nice  for  me !  Billy  was  the  sweetest  thing  in 
horses,  part  broncho,  but  also  part  excellent 
racing  blood.  It  was  not  so  much  that  he  was 
rapid,  but  that  he  was  so  light  he  barely 
touched  the  ground.  His  hoofs  flicked  the 
hard-packed  sand  on  the  beach.  You  could 
tell  the  print  of  his  little  shoes  from  any  other 
horse's,  they  were  so  faint  and  small.  Where 
other  horses  pounded,  he  fluttered,  he  almost 
floated.  I  never  hope  to  experience  anything 
so  near  the  sensation  of  flying,  as  when  we 
raced  along  the  beach.  Oh,  the  music  of  the 
hoofs,  and  the  smell  of  the  kelp,  and  the  thun- 


Letters  from  G.  G.  113 

der  of  the  surf,  and  the  singing  of  the  wind 
in  my  ears  and  hair,  and  the  feel  of  the  air 
wrapping  me  'round  as  we  shot  along.  Billy 
never  needed  urging,  at  my  cluck  he  was  an 
arrow  let  free.  He  loved  to  carry  me,  as  I 
loved  to  be  carried ;  he  seemed  to  love  his  own 
motion  as  much  as  ever  I  did,  and  to  love  me 
as  I  did  him.  When  I  was  not  sitting  on  his 
back,  I  was  to  be  found  sitting  in  his  manger, 
occupied  with  feeding  him  barley-beards,  and 
he  had  the  coziest  way  of  putting  his  nose  on 
my  chest,  and  making  that  friendly  confiden- 
tial sound :  "Hum-hum-hum-hum-hum-hum- 
hum-hum-hum-hum — "  beginning  on  a  high 
note  and  hum-ing  all  down  the  scale. 

Oh,  seventeen !  seventeen !  The  very  begin- 
ning of  things!  How  bitterly  old  it  makes 
one  feel  to  remember ! 

But,  do  you  tell  me  about  your  time  out 
there.  Do  you  ride  much,  or  do  you  eternally 
sit  at  Bridge?  What  do  you  do  beside  make 
Gardens?  Do  you  make  love  in  them?  Do 
you  play  with  your  fellow  men  and  women? 


ii4          Letters  from  G.  G. 

With  a  fellow- woman  ?     Is  that  Girl  around 
yet? 

Tell  me    ...     tell  me  all  about  it! 

G.  G.,  B'WAY,  R.  F.,  CALIFORNIA. 

Winter. 

Do  you  know,  I  think  mice  are  an  awful 
problem.  As  serious  as  a  lot  that  are  made 
much  more  row  about.  Quite  as  serious  to 
most  of  us  as — well — what  are  the  things  that 
people  are  all  the  time  getting  serious  about? 
Race  problems,  and  race  suicide,  and  yellow 
dangers,  children  and  servants.  We  don't  all 
of  us  have  servants  and  children,  but  not 
many  of  us  escape  mice! 

Now  let  me  tell  you: 

Last  summer  when  we  went  home  to  the 
Cape  and  opened  the  house,  we  found  that  the 
winter  had  witnessed  a  tragedy.  The  two 
doors  leading  upstairs  had  been  left  open 
when  we  closed  the  house  the  autumn  before. 
Either  the  wind,  or  the  carpenter  coming  to 
make  repairs,  had  closed  them,  and  crowded 


Letters  from  G.  G.  115 

against  the  door  of  the  front  staircase  we 
found  six  dead  mice,  at  the  foot  of  the  back 
stairs  four !  Poor,  tiny  things !  We  found 
their  nests,  made  of  cotton-batting  which  they 
had  pulled  out  of  a  roll  in  the  attic,  one  on  my 
bed,  and  one  in  Kitty's  bureau  drawer.  And 
everywhere  we  found  little  heaps  of  the  shells 
of  wild-cherry  stones,  of  which  they  had  laid 
in  stores.  I  dare  say  they  had  elected  to 
live  in  the  upper  story,  because  even  in  winter 
it  is  warm  under  the  roof  when  the  sun  beats 
on  the  timbers  overhead.  I  suppose  they  died 
from  lack  of  water,  or  else  their  provisions 
gave  out.  Anyway,  for  all  that  season,  sad 
as  we  were  at  their  fate,  we  were  joyously 
free  of  mice. 

This  summer  when  we  went  home,  the 
house  was  overrun  with  them.  We  decided  to 
bear  with  them.  After  all,  mice  neither  take 
much  room,  nor  much  food;  neither  had  we 
found  them  so  very  destructive.  Our  toler- 
ance made  them  very  fearless  and  tame.  I 
have  seen  one  come  out  of  the  brick  oven  and 


n6  Letters  from  G.  G. 

perch  on  the  edge  of  the  dogs'  bowl  and  drink 
while  we  were  sitting  at  table! 

Finally,  however,  it  was  borne  in  upon  us 
that  mice  are  untidy  things,  and  that  if  you 
let  them  alone  they  will  grow  to  such  num- 
bers as  to  make  home  unfit  to  live  in. 

For  days  we  discussed  what  to  do.  We  de- 
termined to  try  the  fabled  remedy  of  writing 
the  mice  a  kind  letter  of  warning,  and  giving 
them  a  chance  of  their  lives.  Kitty  composed 
the  notice,  which  ran: 

Warning  is  hereby  given  to  all  mice,  rats, 
and  creatures  whatsoever,  infesting  these  prem- 
ises, that  if  they  forthwith  evacuate  all  holes, 
wainscots  and  other  habitations — good!  If 
not,  measures  of  the  sternest  will  be  taken  by 
the  owners  of  said  premises  to  rid  said  prem- 
ises of  said  mice,  rats  and  other  creatures. 
Signed, 

K.  GAY, 
G.  GAY, 

Owners. 


Letters  from  G.  G.  117 

This  we  wrote  on  a  full  sheet  of  notepaper 
in  a  clear,  very  legible  hand.  We  posted  it  on 
a  bill-file,  and  stood  the  file  on  the  dining- 
room  hearth. 

There  it  was  in  full  view  for  three  days  and 
three  nights.  But  the  mice  in  pride  of  life 
only  chuckled  in  their  holes. 

Then  was  a  trap  bought !  And  set    ...    ! 

Next  morning  two  wee  things  were  found 
in  it,  caught  under  their  poor  chins,  the  most 
tragic  expression  of  agony  frozen  on  their 
wretched  little  faces.  With  its  front  paws 
one  of  them  seemed  struggling  to  push  away 
the  brutal  spring. 

We  buried  them  down  near  the  fence,  on 
the  edge  of  the  grove  behind  the  house.  We 
carried  them  wrapped  in  bits  of  an  old  hand- 
kerchief for  winding-sheets.  Very  lovely 
winding-sheets  embroidered  with  festoons  of 
daisies.  Over  the  graves  we  planted  two 
pansies  to  mark  the  spot. 

Next  morning  there  were  two  more.  These 
we  buried  in  a  box.  Kitty  thought  it  would 


n8  Letters  from  G.  G. 

be  truly  gratifying  to  them  to  know  that  their 
coffin  marked  them  as  "High  Grade  Mirror 
Candies."  Over  them  waved  a  sprig  of 
Bouncing  Betty. 

And  so  from  day  to  day  the  row  of  graves 
with  their  flowery  marks  grew,  filled  with 
baby  mice,  and  Father  and  Mother  mice,  un- 
til the  day  dawned  that  we  caught  no  more — 
because  in  all  the  house  there  was  not  one  to 
catch. 

Well  then,  after  that  we  had  a  great  revul- 
sion of  feeling.  We  had  taken  too  many  dead 
mice  out  of  traps.  We  had  seen  enough  of 
mice  we  had  killed!  As  we  looked  at  them 
we  could  not  help  marveling  at  their  totty 
paws,  and  fine,  fine  whiskers,  and  polished 
eyes,  and  plushy  coats.  We  were  at  a  loss 
to  think  of  anything  quite  so  pretty  that  we 
knew  how  to  manufacture. 

In  the  fall  I  rescued  one  from  drowning 
in  a  pail.     I  could  set  a  trap,  but  how  can  any 
one  let  a  mouse  drown? 
What  to  do  with  the  thing ! 


Letters  from  G.  G.  119 

I  bought  him  a  cage,  one  with  a  wheel,  and 
he  ran  splendid  journeys  in  it.  He  loved  to 
run  all  night  long,  until  I  had  to  stick  a  hat- 
pin through  the  wheel  to  keep  it  stationary. 
There  was  no  sleeping  with  it  whirring.  I 
made  him  a  cotton-wool  bed,  and  gave  him  a 
china  water-color  pan  to  drink  out  of,  and  he 
was  a  happy  mouse,  I  think,  and  died  a  happy 
death,  over-eating  delicious  corn. 

After  that,  one  day,  Kitty  was  going  down 
Broadway  with  Mick,  and  a  man  came  up  to 
her  with  a  live  baby  mouse  in  his  hand. 

"May  I  give  this  to  your  dog?" 

"You  may  give  it  to  me,"  said  Kitty,  a  lit- 
tle grimly.  Likely  she'd  feed  Mick  a  live 
mouse ! 

She  took  it  in  her  hand.  The  poor  little 
wretch  was  paralyzed  with  fright,  and  lay 
perfectly  still.  Now  she  had  taken  it,  Kitty 
had  her  turn  at  deciding  a  mouse's  fate. 

She  reasoned :  "If  I  take  it  to  the  Park  and 
let  it  go,  it  will  freeze.  If  I  take  it  home,  it 
will  probably  be  caught  eventually,  and  any- 


I2O  Letters  from  G.  G. 

way,  that  is  no  fair.  If  I  take  it  to  a  small 
provision  shop,  the  shop's  cat  will  eat  it" 
.  .  .  and  so  she  went  on,  making  sugges- 
tions and  rejecting  them. 

What  she  did  was  to  go  to  the  grocery  sec- 
tion of  a  large  department  store,  and  place 
the  mouse  unobtrusively  behind  a  big  case 
of  Uneeda  Biscuits. 

This  may  sound  a  very  immoral  tale,  but 
this  is  how  she  argued: 

"If  this  is  the  only  mouse  in  the  establish- 
ment, why  .  .  .  there  is  no  harm  done. 
Where  there  is  but  one  mouse,  there  is  but 
one  mouse.  And  if  there  are  already  others, 
why  then  .  .  .  one  more  .  .  .  one 
less  .  .  .  ! 

G.  G.,  B'WAY,  R.  F.,  CALIFORNIA. 

Winter. 

I  have  just  come  in  from  hearing  "Parsifal" 
for  the  first  time. 

I  don't  think  I  could  talk  about  it  to  most 
people,  perhaps  to  no  one  but  you,  Yet  to 


Letters  from  G.  G.  121 

some  one  I  must  speak  from  an  over-full  heart. 
I  couldn't  discuss  it.  It  is  a  thing  to  revere, 
not  to  discuss,  any  more  than  a  Church  Serv- 
ice is  to  be  discussed. 

Oh,  that  Vorspiel !  It  wouldn't  matter  much 
what  came  after  it,  the  spell  is  laid  upon  one, 
the  enchantment.  If  you  have  ears  to  hear, 
you  have  understood  it  all  before  the  play  be- 
gins, before  the  curtain  rises  upon  the  pleas- 
ant scene  of  the  old  knight  under  the  tree. 

What  a  quality  the  music  has!  The  qual- 
ity of  fervent  mediaeval  religion,  the  quality 
of  devoutness  made  into  sound. 

The  music,  the  performance,  the  intensity 
of  my  emotion  while  listening  have  left  me 
exhausted.  I,  like  Kundry,  should  like  to 
sink  down  on  a  flight  of  convenient  white 
marble  property  steps,  at  the  foot  of  the  Al- 
tar where  glows  the  Grail,  and  breathe  my 
very,  very  last! 

Don't  you  wish  you  could  believe  that  when 
the  end  comes,  it  might  be  the  end  indeed  ?  I 
wish  I  could — and  I  can't!  I  suppose  it  is 


.122  Letters  from  G.  G. 

too  deeply  ingrained,  the  belief,  nay,  the 
knowledge,  that  this  life  is  merely  a  tiny  sec- 
tion of  the  unbeginning,  unending  soul  of  us. 
But  I  wish  some  one  would  convince  me  to 
the  contrary.  I  have  moments  of  such  intense 
weariness  at  the  thought  of  eternity,  of  the 
enforced  progress  that  we  must  make,  willy- 
nilly,  of  the  advance  through  the  Ages  to 
final  perfection,  the  advance  which,  if  we  do 
not  hasten  on  now  yet  must  be  made,  if  not 
now,  later,  some  time,  from  which  there  is  no 
escape.  "Oh,  God  in  Heaven,"  I  cry,  "exter- 
minate, annihilate  me,  spare  me  the  long,  long, 
long,  long  road  to  your  Divinity !  I'm  willing 
enough  to  worry  along  here,  trying  to  be  the 
best  sort  of  poor  beggar  I  can,  but  for  the 
love  of  Mercy  let  it  end  here !" 

Don't  accuse  me  of  going  back  or  all  I  have 
said  of  the  glory,  and  beauty,  and  privilege  of 
life !  I  repeat  it  all — I  love  life,  every  instant 
of  it,  but  when  it  ends  I  shall  have  had 
enough !  Perhaps  because  I  have  been  so 
happy  all  my  life  long  I  should  be  ready  to 


Letters  from  G.  G.  123 

leave  the  game  now  without  the  feeling  that 
I  had  been  defrauded. 

"Ne  plus  rien  connaitre, 
Ne  rien  souvenir, 
Ne  jamais   renaitre 
Ni  me  rendormir, 
Ne  plus  jamais  etre, 
Mais  en  bien  finir, 
Voila  inon  desir!" 

G.  G.,  B'WAY,  R.  F.f  AT  HOME. 

Spring. 
DEAR  OLD  GUINEA! 

How  I  laughed  over  your  letter!  If  it 
was  meant  to  cheer  me  out  of  the  dumps  I 
wrote  in  last,  it  served  its  end.  But  it  wasn't 
dumps  ailed  me,  you  know,  it  was  "that  tired 
feeling"  raised  to  the  power  where  counting 
vanishes  beyond  human  grasp  and  compre- 
hension. I  am  not  proud  of  the  mood,  and  it 
is  not  a  frequent  one,  but  the  fact  is,  living  is 
a  wearying  process  at  best,  and  when  one  is  a 
woman  working  for  a  livelihood,  the  weariness 
sometimes  gets  ground  in  too  deep,  that's  all. 

At  any  rate,  I'm  feeling  cheerful  enough 


124          Letters  from  G.  G. 

to-day — for  why?  You'd  never  guess!  I'm 
going  to  Italy,  to  Montoro,  for  the  whole 
summer,  for  six  good  months!  It  is  like  a 
fairy-tale,  it  is  a  miracle.  It  seemed  too  wild 
a  thing  ever  to  hope,  when  Lady  Grey's  invi- 
tation first  came,  but  it  is  coming  true,  and  I 
know  just  how  the  raven-fed  prophet  felt! 

I  never  recover  from  the  wonder  of  my 
amazing  good  fortune!  The  way  things 
spring  up  in  my  path  like  Hindoo  magician's 
flowers!  First  a  bid  to  come  to  the  rarest 
place  on  earth.  That  is  all  very  well,  but 
how  to  get  there?  The  staunchest  pedestrian 
of  my  acquaintance  can't  walk  the  seas.  It 
looks  as  if  I'd  have  to  stay  at  home.  What 
then  ?  By  the  funniest  circuitous  route  comes 
a  gift  of  a  passage  to  Europe  and  back  by 
North  German  Lloyd  Line!  You  see,  that  is 
the  form  of  sea-walking  Faith  takes  to-day! 
And  then?  For  to  visit  among  the  quality 
one  must  be  properly  clad — why  then,  for 
one  thing,  work,  orders  for  miniatures  gush 
out  of  the  rocks,  and  then  the  most  complr 


Letters  from  G.  G.  125 

cated  coincidences  fill  my  wardrobe.  So-and- 
so  gives  me  a  braw  blue  hat,  all  nodding 
plumes,  it  doesn't  become  her,  it  does  me. 
Good  hat,  but  it  doesn't  seem  to  go  with  any 
particular  article  of  raiment  I  own ;  and  then, 
like  the  tramp,  I  hold  up  a  button  to  the  Pro- 
vider of  Clothes,  above,  and  ask  will  He  kindly 
furnish  me  a  shirt  to  sew  on  to  it,  and  from  a 
remote  source,  the  Provider,  whose  ears  are 
needles,  produces  a  blue  cloth  suit,  a  new 
one,  a  darling,  it  matches  the  hat,  seems  made 
for  it!  So-and-so  has  gone  into  mourning, 
will  I  accept  this  thing?  Now  if  it  were  any 
one  but  me  it  wouldn't  fit,  but  it  is  me — so  it 
fits !  And  so  it  goes !  If  nothing  else  were 
to  hint  to  me  what  a  fool  I  am,  it  would  be 
this  question  of  luck.  It's  the  richest  thing! 
Bank  accounts  are  nothing  to  it! 

Yes,  next  month  I  sail  away  in  a  big  ship, 
and  go  to  the  wonder  of  wonders,  Montoro, 
to  be  idle  .  .  .  oh,  as  for  being  idle! 
Watch  me!  And  there  I  shall  renew  my 
youth,  and  leave  behind  me  the  drawn,  hag- 


126          Letters  from  G.  G. 

gard,  wrinkled  feelings,  and  saturate  myself 
in  perfume  and  melody — (the  nightingales 
sing  at  Montoro  day  as  well  as  night ! ) . 

You'd  better  come,  too!  I  SAY,  wouldn't 
it  be  nice !  It  would  be  so  nice,  Guinea,  that 
in  the  words  of  G.  Burgess,  "I  thank  God  on 
my  knees  you  are  not  to  be  there!"  Think 
of  it,  will  you?  If  you  were  suddenly  to  do 
the  mad,  delightful,  impossible,  forbidden — 
(mind,  forbidden)  thing! 

Days  when  it  is  not  too  hot  I  mean  to  go 
down  into  Florence  and  copy  Titian's  portrait 
of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  in  miniature.  I  am 
madly  in  love  with  him,  you  know,  that  is,  as 
much  of  me  as  is  not  in  love  with  Pleiad  and 
Jean  de  Reszke.  He  is  in  good  company, 
isn't  he  ?  But  think,  while  I  painted,  you  could 
read  to  me  in  a  very  low  undertone,  and  to- 
ward five  o'clock  we  would  go  to  Giacosa's 
and  have  tea  and  brioches,  or  vermouth  and 
seltzer  and  pasticcini.  And  then  the  walks 
about  Montoro!  There  is  a  ruined  chapel 
there,  such  a  sweet! 


Letters  from  G.  G.  127 

Isn't  the  spring  a  wonder !  One  never  gets 
used  to  it,  but  it  seems  to  me  never  before 
have  I  known  it  so  early,  so  balmy,  so  tender. 
The  florist  shops  won't  let  me  pass  by.  I 
stand  with  my  nose  glued  to  the  pane.  .  .  . 
There  are  evening  crocuses,  a  pinky  lilac,  they 
are  Kitty's  soul,  a  pink  not  too  gay,  a  lilac  not 
too  sober.  There  are  clouds  of  azaleas  of 
flesh  color,  pale  yellow  with  a  suggestion  of 
pink  flush,  like  thin  flame,  like  fire  seen  by 
daylight,  they  are  the  color  of  my  soul. 

What  color  is  yours  ?  A  frank  green  nicely 
shading  into  blue? 

By  the  way,  Pleiad's  letter  will  be  due  just 
about  the  time  I  arrive  in  Italy  ...  for 
the  sweet-breathed  Lilac  Time  is  coming! 
Like  Emily,  I'd  wind  the  months  away  in 
balls  the  quicker  to  come  to  the  day  of  his 
letter! 

G.  G.,  B'WAY,  R.  R,  AT  HOME. 

Spring. 

I'm  sailing  on  Thursday.  Every  cupboard 
and  drawer  and  box  in  the  place  is  pouring 


128  Letters  from  G    G. 

forth  my  belongings.  I  have  a  new  trunk  the 
size  of  a  block  of  houses.  Poor  porters ! 

Shall  I  miss  you  a  little  sometimes?  Why 
no,  frankly,  how  should  I?  I  shall  miss 
Guinea's  letters  if  he  doesn't  write,  Pleiad  I 
cannot  miss,  for  him  I  wear  in  my  heart  of 
hearts,  him  I  have  with  me  always,  but  miss 
you,  R.  F. ?  How  should  I?  You  were  so 
long  ago ! 

You  accuse  me  of  infidelity  to  Titian's  Man 
with  the  Glove,  whom  I  loved  and  taught  you 
to  love  in  Paris!  I  never  said  I  was  in  love 
with  him !  He  is  not  one  to  fall  in  love  with. 
I  said  I  loved  him,  I  do,  and  I  am  as  con- 
stant as  the  northern  star.  He  is  beautiful 
and  good,  et  je  i'aime  d 'amour  tendre;  but 
the  Duke  of  Norfolk?  He  makes  me  feel 
like  a  small  scullery  maid  peeping  from  behind 
a  shutter  as  he  crosses  the  yard  on  his  way  to 
Court.  He  makes  me  tremble,  and  my  heart 
chokes  me.  Look  at  him !  Think  I  would 
ever  dare  step  in  his  way?  See  his  falcon 
eye,  and  quivering  nostril  and  nervous  mouth, 


Letters  from  G.  G.  129 

and  face  all  at  white  heat.  He  would  take  no 
more  heed  of  me  than  of  a  small  fly  on  the 
wall,  or  if  he  did,  he'd  crush  me  between 
thumb  and  finger.  I'm  in  love  with  him,  oh, 
yes,  I  am — but  deliver  me  from  ever  taking  up 
my  abode  in  the  same  world  with  him. 

I  think  that  element  of  remoteness  indis- 
pensable with  my  falling  in  love.  Do  you  sup- 
pose I  could  be  in  love  with  Pleiad,  as  I  am, 
if  there  were  any  danger  of  his  materializing? 
My  picturing  delightful  times  doesn't  really 
"plague"  you,  does  it?  If  I  thought  it  did, 
and  I  had  time,  I'd  plague  you  some  more,  lots 
more,  but  I  have  no  time  to-night.  On  the 
square,  Romney  Flagg,  on  the  level:  Do  you 
suppose  I  ever  could  see  you  again?  Why,  I 
couldn't  look  you  in  the  face.  I'd  go  through 
the  floor!  and  I'm  not  easily  rattled,  either. 
If  there  were  any  chance  of  running  into  you 
in  Florence,  I'd  take  to  the  woods.  Now, 
tiens  le  toi  pour  dit,  once  for  all !  I  mean  it ! 

Sorry  you  don't  like  the  color  of  my  soul ! 
I  adore  pink!  Unhealthy?  Rubbish!  Pink 


130          Letters  from  G.  G. 

is  joyous  and  smiling  and  brave,  and  delicious, 
and  utterly  lovable,  and  dear !  Am  I  sure  my 
soul  is  pink  ?  Why,  I  never  said  it  was ! 
Alas,  no !  Would  that  it  were !  But  I  live  in 
hopes  it  may  grow  pink  some  day  if  I  peg 
away  at  it  hard  enough.  Some  day  I  may 
come  to  feel  that  it  is  blushing  on  the  verge 
of  pinkhood!  But  it  isn't  yet,  it  is  the  color 
of  my  azaleas ! 

Yes,  blue  is  lovely  and  sweet;  but  doesn't 
it  just  the  least  bit  in  the  world  pat  itself  on 
the  back? 

G.  G.,  ON  BOARD  SHIP,  R.  Fv  AT  HOME. 

Spring. 

There  is  yet  another  week  ahead.  I've  been 
out  a  week.  It  has  been  good  weather, 
mostly,  but  the  first  two  days  laid  every  one 
low,  below.  The  weather  doesn't  affect  me. 
An  old  gentleman,  green  about  the  mouth,  told 
me  the  other  day  he  had  never  seen  so  tri- 
umphant a  sailor  as  I.  I  don't  know  why  tri- 
umphant, unless  it  is  that  my  big  red  coat  with 


Letters  from  G.  G.  131 

silver  buttons  does  look  rather  arrogantly 
cheerful. 

I  have  spent  much  time  at  the  stern  staring 
down  like  a  Mahatma  at  the  boiling,  seething, 
roaring  wake.  It  looks  like  molten  glass, 
doesn't  it,  or  the  walls  of  the  Ice  Maiden's 
palace.  And  at  night  the  milky  radiance  of 
the  phosphorescence  is  enough  to  hypnotize 
one  into  watching  it  until  dawn. 

I'm  resting  slowly,  I  came  aboard  too  tired 
to  think  or  speak  coherently.  But  I've  slept 
an  absurd  proportion  of  the  time,  and  when 
not  sleeping  have  lain  on  deck  with  closed 
eyes,  listening  to  the  rush  of  many  waters, 
and  in  the  sight  and  sound  of  sea  and  sky 
have  been  forgetting  the  ache  and  the  pathos 
of  life,  the  heart-breaking  pathos  of  people — 
all  of  us — with  our  poor  little  ambitions  and 
vanities  and  makeshifts,  and  our  angers  and 
impatiences,  and,  oh!  our  gratifications  and 
happinesses!  It  is  to  weep! 

Thank  Heaven,  there  is  Nature,  calm  and 


132  Letters  from  G.  G. 

impersonal,  and  above  all,  dignified,  and  not 
pathetic,  to  soothe  her  fretful  children,  in  the 
love  of  whom  there  is  no  pain.  Is  there  any 
love  other  than  that  of  Nature  to  which  there 
is  no  suffering  inevitably  attached? 

There  is,  without  exception,  the  most  deadly 
respectable  and  dull  collection  of  people  on 
board  I  ever  crossed  with.  My  oasis  is  an 
Italian  Doctor  of  the  Royal  Navy.  He  speaks 
no  English,  and  as  no  one  else  on  board  speaks 
Italian,  and  as  he  is  the  most  incessant  chat- 
terbox, as  well  as  the  most  amusing  creature 
I've  met  this  many  a  day  on  land  or  sea,  with 
the  most  enchanting  smile,  tho'  not  entirely 
innocent  of  raillerie,  and  strangely  illuminat- 
ing an  otherwise  unattractive  face  (he  has  a 
nose  like  a  chicken's  beak),  and  a  most 
searching  sense  of  the  ludicrous  .  .  . 
I've  lost  the  beginning  of  that  sentence.  You 
may  have  detected  the  fact  that  the  wind  is 
blowing  my  hair  and  brains  to  the  four  quar- 
ters. 


Letters  from  G.  G.  133 

A  Week  Later. 

Oh,  my  dear !  oh,  my  dear !  oh,  my  dear ! 
We  arrived  in  Naples  yesterday,  and  spent 
the  whole  day  there,  a  radiant  day  of  intoxi- 
cation !  The  first  draught  of  Italy  certainly 
does  produce  something  which  amounts  to  a 
divine  jag,  one  feels  like  a  mild  edition  of  a 
Bacchante. 

They  go  to  one's  brain,  that  light,  that  sky, 
that  air,  that  wonderful  old-world  flavor.  We 
are  out  of  sight  of  land  again  and  to-morrow 
we  land  in  Genoa,  but  it  won't  be  the  same. 
It  is  that  first  whiff  of  Italy  after  two  weeks 
of  sea  in  company  with  a  lot  of  Anglo-Saxons 
that  makes  the  enchantment  of  Naples.  Not 
that  alone,  of  course,  but  that  which  makes  it 
all  so  deliciously  lovely ! 

Oh,  Lord !  Make  me  an  Italian  next  time ! 
How  adorable  they  are !  How  merry !  I've 
owned  up  to  you  before  that  I  fancy  the  lads 
more  than  the  lassies?  Oh,  the  lads!  I  lost 
my  heart  quite  fifteen  separate  times  during 
the  day  to  one  lad  more  beautiful  than  the 


134          Letters  from  G.  G. 

next.  In  a  cafe  out  on  the  Posilipo  road  there 
were  four  young  Bersaglieri  who  were  dreams, 
my  dear,  but  dreams! 

You  know,  they  all  affect  me  like  a  lot  of 
friendly  dogs.  They  are  so  lovely  to  look  at, 
but  they  seem  to  have  not  quite  the  full  com- 
plement of  human  intelligence.  When  I  think 
of  what  the  boredom  would  be  at  the  end  of 
half  an  hour's  talk  with  any  one  of  those  beau- 
tiful boys! 

As  I  looked  at  the  miles  upon  miles  of  sweet 
villas  with  balconies  flooded  with  flowers 
(pink  geraniums  in  particular),  and  all  sorts 
of  irregular  corners  and  excrescences,  all  that 
charm  of  the  unexpected,  I  felt  that  I  could 
live  and  die  happy  in  one  of  them,  col  mio 
amato  benc.  In  my  dreams  I  shall  inhabit 
one  of  them  with  Pleiad.  He  was  with  me  all 
day  yesterday.  You  might  not  guess  it  from 
my  much  talk  of  those  others,  but  he  was,  and 
we  had  a  wonderful  time.  We  did  all  sorts 
of  things  that  tourists  don't  do.  We  lived  a 
whole  year  in  the  day  in  a  pink  villa,  with  a 


Letters  from  G.  G.  135 

loggi-ato,  with  scenery  in  funny  perspective 
painted  on  its  walls,  and  oleanders  and  bam- 
boos and  orange-trees  in  jars,  and  ivy  crawl- 
ing" everywhere.  We  dined  out  there  every 
night  and  saw  the  stars  come  out,  and  wished 
on  the  first  one — no,  we  didn't,  for  the  wish 
had  all  come  true,  and  there  was  nothing  left 
to  wish  for,  and  we  watched  the  boats  go  by 
in  the  bay,  and  the  fireflies,  and  we  sat  with 
sprigs  of  orange-flower  in  our  hands  to  in- 
hale, and  dreamed,  and  dreamed,  and 
dreamed;  and  the  days  were  pearly,  and  the 
nights  enamel,  and  they  followed  one  another 
all  too  fast,  that  was  the  only  pain  in  them, 
and  we  were  happy,  Pleiad  and  Philota. 

It  was  very  nice,  nicer  than  it  could  possibly 
ever  be  in  reality.  That  is  the  best  part  of 
pretending,  isn't  it,  that  you  can  pretend 
things  so  much  more  miraculous  than  they 
ever  could  be.  For  instance,  when  one  is 
thinking  a  year  in  a  pink  villa  with  Pleiad 
there  are  no  fleas  in  it,  there  is  nothing  but 
the  smell  of  flowers  in  the  air,  and  oneself  is 


136  Letters  from  G.  G. 

not  a  very  near-sighted  New  Englander  with 
a  pug  nose  and  irregular  teeth ! 

Florence. 

Good  to  be  here,  but  oh,  how  different  from 
Naples!  How  orderly  and  serene  by  com- 
parison. No  less  lovely,  but  more  gently  aus- 
tere. Not  the  same  glamour,  the  same  magic. 

I've  been  to  Giacosa's.  I  drank  your 
health  in  silence.  That  is  not  a  newly  discov- 
ered drink,  tho'  it  sounds  so,  but  while  every 
one  around  me  was  sipping  and  gossiping,  I 
raised  my  glass  and  held  it  to  the  light.  I 
might  have  been  supposed  to  be  searching  for 
a  crumb  of  cork  in  the  amber  fluid,  but  I  was 
in  reality  pledging  you — or  Pleiad:  "A  toi, 
fantome  adorable  et  charmant!" 

We  had  a  little  table  by  the  window,  Bar- 
bara and  I,  and  could  see  all  the  rest  of  the 
room.  Presently  a  number  of  Americans 
came  in  and  settled  themselves  at  tables  near 
by.  They  were  all  of  one  party,  but  had  to 
divide  up,  for  the  tables  are  small.  Two  of 


Letters  from  G.  G.  137 

them  sat  where  I  could  see  both  perfectly. 
One  was  a  youth  of  not  more  than  twenty-five, 
the  other  a  woman  of  not  less  than  forty,  to 
put  it  kindly. 

He  looked  like  a  Greek  statue  come  to  life, 
sweetly  beautiful  and  noble  and  unconscious. 
She  was  about  as  unattractive  as  it  is  per- 
mitted woman  to  be :  Sallow,  thin,  with  color- 
less limp  hair,  the  hair  that  looks,  as  Viola 
says,  as  if  the  rats  had  sucked  it!  She  was 
dowdy  besides.  If  she  had  looked  animated 
one  might  have  forgiven  her,  but  she  was 
lumpish  and  stupid ;  or  if  she  had  breathed  an 
atmosphere  of  sweetness  and  goodness,  but 
she  didn't ! 

They  sat  together,  perfectly  oblivious  of  all 
around  them,  without  a  sign  of  self-conscious- 
ness, he  looking  at  her  with  his  soul  in  his 
eyes,  she  adoringly  at  him. 

Presently  she  took  off  her  gloves  and  laid 
them  beside  her  on  the  table.  He  reached  out 
and  took  them  up,  and  held  them  against  his 
face,  and  then,  absent-mindedly  and  very  ten- 


138  Letters  from  G.  G. 

derly,  kissed  the  tip  of  each  glove-finger  be- 
fore putting  them  down  again.  The  rest  of 
the  party  paid  little  or  no  attention  to  them, 
and  they  seemed  not  to  know  that  they  were 
not  alone  in  the  world. 

I  wondered  for  a  moment  if  they  might  not 
be  Mother  and  Son,  or  Brother  and  Sister, 
but  no!  The  look  on  both  their  faces,  es- 
pecially his,  was  a  flat  denial  of  any  such  idea. 
He  was  like  one  under  a  spell. 

I  called  Barbara's  attention  to  them,  and 
she  was  not  slow  to  see  why  I  had  told  her 
to  look.  After  gazing  at  them  for  a  few  mo- 
ments, she  turned  back  to  me  with  eyes  very 
large  and  round,  and  eyebrows  very  high,  and 
said: 

"That  is  a  cruel  sight !" 

And  we  agreed  that  the  days  of  black  magic 
were  not  past. 

Black  magic,  was  it?  Likelier  just  plain 
magic  of  Italy,  Italy  and  spring-time. 


Letters  from  G.  G.          139 

G.  G.,  MONTORO,  NEAR  FLORENCE,  TO  R.  F., 
AT  HOME. 

Summer. 

DEAR  GUINEA  :  You  say  you  can't  make  me 
out  in  Florence?  Does  my  life  here  sound 
so  very  unreal?  Well — it  is  almost  unreal  if 
one  thinks  of  life  in  a  New  York  apartment 
house,  spent  scrabbling  through  the  weeks  to 
catch  up  with  one's  work  and  engagements  as 
real  life! 

I'll  send  you  some  photographs  if  they  turn 
out  well,  they'll  give  you  the  setting  of  my  life 
here.  A  life  which  flows  without  a  ripple,  se- 
rene, peaceful,  wonderful.  I  feel  like  a  shell 
in  a  deep,  safe  harbor.  All  here  is  harmony 
and  beauty,  not  a  detail  is  out  of  tune.  Each 
day  is  flawless.  It  is  like  being  in  a  convent, 
in  a  way,  or  in  an  Adamless  Eden.  It  is  very 
sweet,  very  restful.  There  is  a  dignity  and 
a  beauty  about  everything  surrounding  Lady 
Grey  that  makes  life  a  constant  delight  to 
the  imagination  and  the  senses. 

Each  morning  I  make  what  we  call  il  bel 


140          Letters  from  G.  G. 

giro  of  the  gardens.  Properly  done  it  takes 
two  hours.  I  dodder  along  slowly,  slowly;  I 
look  at  everything,  at  every  new  bud  and  leaf 
almost — at  every  shadow  of  the  clouds  on  the 
hills,  I  smell  of  every  new  flower  that  has 
blossomed  overnight.  I  make  long  pauses  on 
sun-warmed  benches,  looking  off  over  the  val- 
ley at  Florence,  azure  and  rose  down  yonder, 
with  the  sun  picking  out  a  living  diamond  on 
a  roof  here  and  there. 

We  literally  see  no  one.  There  is  one  ex- 
ception, an  English  woman  who  plays  su- 
perbly on  the  piano,  comes  every  week  and 
plays  Bach  as  I  have  never  heard  him  played 
before.  I  have  never  cared  for  him  much  un- 
til now,  but  she  is  enough  to  convert  any  one ! 

At  night  my  balcony  makes  a  most  wonder- 
ful bed.  I  am  as  on  the  top  of  a  tower — or  in 
a  balloon.  It  is  a  fine  thing  to  sleep  there,  a 
finer  to  lie  awake  and  watch  the  night's 
changes — see  the  color  flow  back  into  the  gar- 
den and  turn  it  from  gray  and  black  to  irides- 
cent. To  see  Florence  flooded  with  moon- 


Letters  from  G.  G.  141 

light,  and  then  touched  by  the  first  glimmer  of 
day — and  then — the  sun. 

You  say  you  wonder  if  I'm  happy  and  sup- 
pose I  am  in  spite  of  all  ?  In  spite  of  what — 
my  friend?  Happy  because  of  all.  I  can't 
imagine  anything  that  would  make  me  un- 
happy, any  calamity,  I  mean.  I  can  suffer, 
of  course,  to  any  extent,  but  that  is  not  the 
same.  I  dare  say  a  crime  on  my  conscience, 
"a  killing  sin,"  remorse,  would  make  me  un- 
happy. And  right  here  let  me  tell  you  that 
I  am  in  no  present  danger  of  displeasing  you 
by  marrying,  though  when  you  so  quaintly  say 
that  you  "wouldn't  like  it  a  bit  if  I  were  to 
marry,"  you  mean,  don't  you,  if  I  were  to 
marry  one  whom  I  didn't  love.  Wouldn't  you 
love  to  have  me  marry  one  whom  I  truly 
loved?  Of  course  you  would!  No — I  came 
near  enough  to  the  other  monster  to  see  the 
whites  of  its  eyes,  and  I  had  time  to  deliber- 
ately turn  away  from  what  I  saw  lying  behind 
them — before  it  could  gobble  me  up.  I  call 
myself  a  good  woman,  as  women  go — that  is, 


142  Letters  from  G.  G. 

I  don't  call  myself  a  bad  one,  but  I  can  imagine 
a  demoralization  that  would  make  me  equal  to 
the  worst. 

You  add  that  you  suppose  "the  other  thing 
is  not  so  pleasant  either" — what  do  you  mean 
by  "the  other  thing?"  Being  a  penniless  old 
maid  ?  Oh,  my  dear !  Don't  you  fret !  It  has 
its  compensations,  especially  being  the  kind  of 
old  maid  7  mean  to  be !  I  don't  intend  to  dry 
up  and  blow  away !  You  watch  and  see  what 
a  nice  little  old  maid  I  shall  be,  and  the  kind 
of  penniless  I  shall  be!  It's  rarely  I  have  a 
moment  when  I'd  change  my  state  with  kings. 
Penniless  or  no,  old  maid  or  no,  believe  me  I 
intend  to  love  and  be  loved  to  my  dying  day — 
and  after!  What  else  counts? 

Your  speaking  of  me  as  more  real  to  you 
than  people  you  saw  only  yesterday  interests 
me,  it  so  bears  out  one  of  my  deepest  convic- 
tions as  to  the  meaning  of  association  between 
people.  The  object  of  their  meeting  is  not 
that  they  shall  enjoy  a  long  and  happy  com- 
panionship. How  many  live  together  for  a 


Letters  from  G.  G.  143 

half-century  who  have  never  truly  met  and 
been  a  reality  to  one  another  at  all,  who  re- 
main strangers  to  the  end  ?  The  point  is,  that 
meeting  they  shall  recognize  each  other  and 
remember  and  understand.  It  matters  noth- 
ing, then,  whether  they  meet  for  five  minutes, 
or  a  day,  or  a  decade. 

G.  G.,  NEW  YORK,  TO  R.  F.,  AT  HOME. 

Autumn. 

"  Io  ritornai  dalla  santissim'  onda 
Rifatto  si,  come  piante  novelle 
Rinnovellate  di  novella  fronda, 
Puro  e  disposto  a  salire  alle  stelle." 

G.  G.,  B'WAY,  TO  R.  F.,  AT  HOME. 

Autumn. 

How  did  you  know  I  was  so  inordinately 
happy  at  getting  home?  The  mere  words  of 
my  quotation  need  not  necessarily  have  con- 
veyed the  impression,  august  and  joyous 
though  the  language  of  Dante  is.  I  was  fair 
bursting  with  glee!  And  the  feeling  of  it 
must  have  reached  you  by  some  subtle  me- 
dium. 


144          Letters  from  G.  G. 

You  know,  of  course,  how  much  I  like  to  go 
to  Europe !  How  I  go  as  often  and  stop  over 
there  as  long  as  I  can !  How  I  love  the  whole 
performance — the  getting  ready  to  go,  the 
start,  the  journey,  the  arrival,  and  everything 
about  the  stay  over  there!  But,  my  dear 
good  friend,  there  is  nothing  in  the  whole 
thing  that  comes  up  to  the  getting  home ! 

When  I  set  foot  on  the  steamer  heading  for 
this  side  I  am  the  child  let  out  of  school,  the 
prisoner  coming  out  of  a  damp,  dark  dungeon 
— the  uncorked  champagne  bottle.  I'm  all  of 
it!  You  just  can't  hold  me  down.  I  effer- 
vesce all  the  way  back,  and  I  don't  flatten  for 
weeks  after  landing,  either.  And  it  is  not  es- 
pecially that  I'm  crazy  to  get  back  to  my  fam- 
ily, and  house,  and  dog — it's  just  the  joy  of 
getting  to  the  U.  S.  A. 

I  have  the  feeling  on  landing  that  every- 
thing in  sight  belongs  to  me.  It's  my  New 
York,  and  my  Broadway,  and  my  Park — and 
the  people  all  over  the  place  are  my  people, 


Letters  from  G.  G.  145 

every  man,  woman  and  child  is  mine,  and  I 
know  them,  and  they  know  me. 

A  while  ago,  just  after  landing,  I  was  com- 
ing down  Fifth  Avenue,  and  Daisy  turned  to 
me  after  a  long,  cozy  silence,  and  said: 

"Would  you  mind  telling  me  what  you  are 
grinning  at?" 

"Oh,  nothing,"  I  answered  idiotically.  "I 
just  saw  Lillian  Russell  go  by  in  a  hansom." 

I  don't  know  Lillian  Russell,  you  know,  but 
just  to  see  her  drive  in  a  cab  made  me  feel 
as  if  I  were  sitting  by  my  warm  fireside. 

There's  nothing  like  it.  It's  worth  going 
away  from — even  if  there  were  not  raptures 
awaiting  one  on  the  other  side — just  for  the 
bliss  of  getting  back ! 

Shortly  after  my  return  I  made  a  round  of 
visits  in  and  near  Boston  and  all  over  New 
England.  Such  a  good  time!  Visiting  people 
I  dearly  loved,  being  petted  and  spoiled  and 
purred  over  and  shown  off ! 

Now  I  am  back  here  in  New  York  and  try- 
ing to  settle  down  to  work  again. 


146  Letters  from  G.  G. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  world  so  contagious 
as  irritability.  You  lift  your  eyebrows — but 
you  shall  see.  You  start  from  home  on  a 
sweet  fresh  morn  filled  with  peace  and  good 
will  toward  women,  you  are  in  love  with  the 
whole  world,  and  not  for  the  whole  world 
would  you  tread  on  any  one's  toes.  You  go 
to  buy  a  bargain  veil.  The  counter  is 
crowded.  The  girl  beyond  it  snippy — and  the 
women  before,  behind  and  beside  you  beastly 
rude.  They  try  to  brush  you  aside  like  a  mos- 
quito, and  are  so  peevish  at  your  being  there 
that  you  catch  their  ill  temper,  and  if  you  were 
not  a  Perfect  Lady  you  might  forget  things 
and  be  as  ill-bred  as  they,  having  become  in- 
fected with  the  uncontrollably  irritable  mi- 
crobe. 

Now  there  is  only  one  microbe  more  infec- 
tious, that  of  unalterable  amiability.  In  a 
hand-to-hand  set-to  it  is  so  sure  to  come  out 
ahead  and  does  it  so  easily  that  the  battle 
doesn't  seem  fair.  The  victory  is  so  inevita- 
ble that  it  seems  like  betting  on  a  dead  sure 


Letters  from  G.  G.  147 

thing — almost  unsportsmanlike.  It  is  so  sure 
to  do  the  trick — and  the  trick  is  so  easy  to  do ! 

What  made  me  think  of  it  was,  that  when  I 
was  coming  on  here  to  New  York  from  Bos- 
ton the  other  day  the  train  was  crowded,  at 
least  the  common  coaches  were,  and  I  was  not 
traveling  in  a  parlor  car  that  day.  There  are 
feast  days  and  fast  days  in  my  calendar,  and 
that  day  I  was  just  getting  to  New  York  and 
that  was  about  all. 

It  was  hot  and  very  stuffy,  and  I  searched 
the  train  from  end  to  end  for  an  empty  seat 
before  I  found  one  beside  a  kind  old  gentle- 
man. Across  the  aisle  sat  a  lady  with  a  young 
son,  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  old.  They  had 
many,  many  parcels  in  the  rack  and  on  their 
laps,  and  some  had  spread  on  to  the  little  sin- 
gle place  opposite  them,  you  know  the  little 
seat  with  its  back  to  the  engine,  right  next  to 
the  ice-water  tank  in  some  cars  ? 

A  young  woman  who  had  arrived  late  was 
having  the  same  difficulty  that  I  had  had  in 
finding  a  place.  I  saw  her  hesitate  as  she 


148  Letters  from  G.  G. 

looked  at  the  seat,  with  the  parcels  on  it. 
The  mother  and  son  were  already  so  crowded 
by  their  bundles  that  she  visibly  disliked  sug- 
gesting their  giving  up  the  space  occupied 
by  their  belongings. 

They  looked  with  determined  absence  of 
mind  out  of  the  window.  They  weren't  hear- 
ing anything.  She  addressed  herself  to  the 
lady,  and  said  that  though  she  was  very  sorry 
to  crowd  her,  she  feared  she  would  have  to 
beg  her  to  take  her  effects  from  the  little  seat 
opposite  her.  The  lady  looked  very  fussed  but 
moved  not  a  finger. 

Then  the  boy  began:  "I  don't  see  why  you 
can't  find  some  other  place!  You  can  see  for 
yourself  we  are  just  as  crowded  and  uncom- 
fortable as  we  can  be  already" — and  on — and 
on — but  never  a  move  moved  he. 

If  I  had  been  that  girl — or  no — if  I  had 
been  a  big  man — how  I  should  have  taken  that 
boy  and  that  woman  and  cracked  their 
heads  together  and  pitched  them  swiftly  out 
of  the  train  window.  But  this  girl  was  a 


Letters  from  G.  G.  149 

Lady  and  made  use  of  such  weapons  as  she 
possessed. 

Her  face  became  angelic,  beaming  kind. 
Her  smile  sugary.  Mind  you,  real  sugar,  un- 
tinged  with  the  least  edge  of  irony,  and  look- 
ing at  the  boy  with  gentle  interest,  she  asked 
quite  simply,  in  a  buttered  pink  plush  voice: 

"Would  you  like  me  to  stand?" 

His  face  blazed  scarlet. 

"No — no — of  course  not "  he  stam- 
mered, and  began  hurriedly  dumping  the  bun- 
dles off  the  seat. 

She  took  it  with  fitting  thanks,  but  she 
looked  charmingly  uncomfortable  with  her 
back  against  the  wall  which  gave  no  room  for 
the  brim  of  her  broad  hat,  and  poked  her  head 
forward,  or  made  her  sit  bold  upright.  Be- 
fore many  miles  the  boy  gruffly  offered  to 
exchange  seats  with  her,  and  let  her  face  the 
engine.  She  accepted  with  a  grateful  coo, 
and  the  rest  of  the  journey  passed  like  any 
other  journey. 

But  honestly  now,  aside  from  its  being  so 


150  Letters  from  G.  G. 

much  pleasanter  all  around,  just  looking  at  it 
in  the  light  of  a  paying  investment,  did  you 
ever  know  the  like  of  it? 

No  expense  and  so  much  coming  in! 

At  the  Time  of  Withered  Leaves. 

Philota  cannot  write  in  answer  to  Pleiad's 
letter  in  the  same  key — 

"Wanting  is — what?v 

I  can't  tell,  I  only  know  that  it  can't  be  done. 
It  would  take  a  certain  mood,  and  moods  do 
not  recur  at  will  any  more  than  do  dreams. 
Would  that  they  did!  Then  we  might  make 
a  judicious  selection  of  one  very  rosy  mood 
and  one  rosy  illusion  and  subsist  in  them  for- 
ever. 

To-night,  and  for  days,  I  have  felt  very 
matter  of  fact,  very  wide  awake. 

You  fear  that  I  shall  think  of  you  less  often 
now  that  I  have  left  the  Elysian  Montoro, 
and  come  back  to  earth  again?  You  say  I 
seemed  nearer  to  you  there  than  here  among 
my  four  million  friends?  There  is  little  time 


Letters  from  G.  G.  151 

when  I  am  not  thinking  of  you,  my  friend,  of 
Pleiad,  that  is. 

You  are  puzzlea  as  to  the  exact  relationship 
to  one  another  of  yotfr  three  personalities?  It 
is  easy  to  enlighten  you : 

Pleiad  is  the  Perfect  Lover,  The  One  who  is 
just  as  I  should  wish  him  to  be,  The  Best  that 
I  am  capable  of  inventing.  He  lives  in  my 
imagination,  and  fills  and  possesses  it. 

Guinea  is,  let  us  say,  the  only  visible  ex- 
pression that  I  have  of  Pleiad;  he  is  Pleiad's 
writing;  he  is  the  material  form  in  which 
Pleiad  is  presented  to  me;  he  is  no  more 
Pleiad  than  the  clothes  are  the  man,  even  tho' 
in  a  sense  they  bear  his  form,  and  as  garments 
suggest  and  represent  a  person  even  tho'  they 
disguise,  so  Guinea,  in  a  way,  stands  for 
Pleiad. 

And  you,  R.  F.,  where  do  you  come  in? 
Why,  you  are  that  upon  which  Guinea  de- 
pends. Shall  you  mind  being  called  a  sort 
of  clothes-peg? 

How  great  is  the  distance  between  the  Lover, 


152  Letters  from  G.  G. 

Pleiad  (for  in  my  mind  he  is  the  real  person, 
you  know),  and  the  Peg  (that's  you),  upon 
which  his  clothes  (Guinea)  hang?  That 
.  .  .  nobody  knows  ...  I  suspect  they 
are  worlds  apart,  yet  who  shall  say? 

Here  are  the  pictures  of  Montoro  I  prom- 
ised you.  Wonderful,  aren't  they?  Of  course 
1  hated  to  leave  it,  and  yet  ...  at  the 
end  there  were  moments  when  I  began  to  long 
for  the  outside  world  again,  for  the  company 
of  something  beside  women!  Ladies  are 
first-rate  for  wet  mornings  and  dry  afternoons 
.  .  .  but,  on  a  divine  night  ...  in  a 
divine  garden  .  .  .  with  or  without  moon- 
light, when  you  are  decked  in  your  loveliest, 
charming  clothes,  charming  thoughts  .  .  . 

I  don't  know  the  end  of  that  speech,  but 
really,  you  know,  Italy  is  no  place  for  Old 
Maids ! 

When  the  gates  of  Paradise  closed  behind 
me  I'd  have  beamed  upon  Anyman,  even  had 
he  been  a  book-agent  or  a  plumber. 

So  you  are  going  to  California  again  this 


Letters  from  G.  G.  153 

winter?  What  makes  you?  You  went  there 
last  year  and  I  wanted  you  to  go  to  Italy  this 
time,  to  Florence !  I  wanted  you  to  go  there 
and  see  so  much  that  I  had  lately  seen,  I 
wanted  you  to  think  of  me  as  you  sat  before 
the  hush  of  the  Perugino  Crucifixion  in  the 
Chapter  House  of  Maria  Maddalena  dei  Pazzi, 
and  as  you  looked  at  the  Masaccio  frescoes  in 
the  Carmine,  and  in  the  forest  of  pillars  in 
the  Santo  Spirito;  and  I  wanted  you  to  greet 
Michael  Angelo's  Brutus  for  me,  in  the  Bar- 
gello,  and  I  wanted  you  to  see  me  . 
whenever  you  saw  the  blue  haze  filling  up  the 
distant  end  of  the  street ;  I  wanted  you  not  to 
forget  me  for  a  single  instant  while  you  were 
there,  and  I  wanted  you  to  ...  but  there, 
what's  the  use,  if  you  are  going  to  California? 

You  ask  me  to  tell  you  why  I  am  "real"  to 
you  ?  realler  than  others  ?  No,  I  shall  not  tell 
you.  You  discovered  all  by  yourself  that  I 
was  real,  didn't  you?  The  why  you  may  also 
come  upon  by  yourself,  and  if  not,  qu'importe? 

Do  you  not  suppose  that  Pleiad  is  real  to 


154          Letters  from  G.  G. 

me?  Why,  he  is  the  reallest  thing  in  life! 
So  real  that,  as  I  told  you  last  year  at  this 
time  he  shaped  my  destiny  ...  he  stood 
like  an  Angel  with  Flaming  Sword  bar- 
ring my  path  to  destruction.  Yes  .  .  . 
even  so.  His  letter  at  that  time,  that  remark- 
able composition  so  filled  with  all  the  fervent 
images  that  a  vivid  imagination  could  devise 
of  strong  and  splendid  and  exquisite  and  deli- 
cate, tipped  the  scales  in  the  right  direction. 

Are  you  curious? 

Imagine  a  young  woman  with  delicate 
health,  a  slender,  very  slender  talent,  and  a 
purse  both  delicate  and  slender.  Add  to  these 
attributes  a  universal  love  of  beautiful  things, 
and  an  absorbing  love  of  pleasure. 

Then  imagine  a  Man,  rich — oh,  brutally 
rich — weirdly  successful,  and  terrifyingly 
used  to  having  his  own  way,  buying  it  if  it  is 
not  given  him,  at  all  events  getting  it  by  fair 
means  or  foul. 

Then  ask  yourself  the  old  riddle :  What 
would  happen  were  an  absolutely  irresistible 


Letters  from  G.  G.  155 

force  to  come  in  contact  with  an  absolutely 
immovable  object?  And  there  you  have  it  all 
in  your  thimble. 

I  don't  know  the  answer  to  that  riddle,  do 
you?  But  I  know  that  the  meeting  of  those 
two  elements  doesn't  produce  anything  quiet 
or  comfy  or  cozy  or  restful  or  conducive  to 
peace  and  happiness. 

You  see,  the  point  is:  this  young  woman 
was  not  prepared  to  give  her  hand  unaccom- 
panied by  her  heart,  and  further,  it  was  not 
as  if  she  had  been  convinced  that  the  Man 
truly  loved  her.  It  is  to  be  supposed  that  he 
thought  he  did,  according  to  his  lights,  but 
her  lights  showed  her  that  it  was  not  love  at 
all.  She  simply  had  the  gift  of  amusing  him. 
Therein  lay  the  whole  secret  of  it.  She  might 
have  been  beautiful  as  the  day  and  night,  good 
as  good  bread,  and  clever  as  Mr.  Bernard 
Shaw  (she  was  none  of  this,  but  I'm  just 
talking).  She  might  have  been  a  Counsel  of 
Perfection,  none  of  that  would  have  been  the 
reason  for  the  Man's  determination  to  "win 


156          Letters  from  G.  G. 

out."  What  he  liked  was  to  laugh  and  be 
distracted,  what  he  wanted  was  to  be  amused ; 
tho'  she  might  not  have  been  called  in  general 
a  particularly  amusing  person,  she  had  a  spe- 
cific talent  for  amusing  him. 

Now  does  any  one  call  that  sufficient  equip- 
ment for  being  led  up  to  the  altar  rail  ? 

Woe's  me !  Think  of  having  to  be  amusing 
at  breakfast !  or  when  you  were  coming  down 
with  grippe,  or  after  hearing  Tristan  and 
Isolde,  for  so  you  must  be,  if  your  only  appar- 
ent excuse  for  living  lay  in  being  diverting! 
Think  of  spending  your  life  being  shown  off 
in  the  character  of  raconteuse  to  the  hordes 
of  your  husband's  business  friends.  Think  of 
having  to  go  through  your  little  bag  of  tricks 
when  you  were  made  sick  and  faint  at  the  bare 
mention  of  them,  of  having  to  sit  up  and  tell 
stories,  the  edgier  the  better,  and  to  imitate 
Duse  and  Sara  Bernhardt  and  Anna  Held 
and  Yvette  Guilbert,  when  you  felt  murderous 
at  the  mere  thought  of  them !  Think  of  shar- 
ing your  days  with  one  to  whom  you  were 


Letters  from  G.  G.  157 

practically  a  sealed  book,  one  to  whom  cham- 
ber after  chamber  of  your  soul  was  locked  and 
barred  and  bolted,  airy  chambers,  and  wind- 
ing corridors,  and  fairly  spacious  halls  of 
which  the  Master  of  the  House  was  unaware. 
With  one  who  had  nothing  to  give  you  men- 
tally or  morally  or  spiritually,  whose  only 
gifts  must  ever  be  of  the  sort  paid  for  in  coin, 
even  tho'  in  that  direction  he  had  all  the  ma- 
terial realms  of  the  world  to  spread  out  at 
your  feet.  And  further,  with  one  who  would 
care  not  a  jot  for  any  small  gift  or  grace  of 
mind  and  character  that  you  might  be  able  to 
bestow  upon  him,  one  who  would  neither  have 
eyes  to  see  them,  nor  taste  for  them  if  he  did. 

There  then  was  the  situation.  The  Girl 
was  poor,  and  the  Man  could  afford  to  wait. 

And  then  .  .  .  and  then  .  .  .  out 
of  the  Ambient,  out  of  the  Spring,  there  ap- 
peared a  Lover,  a  spirit  with  wings  tipped  with 
flame  .  .  .  who,  by  his  setting  forth  of 
"Ideas,"  made  it  so  clear  what  Love  should 


158          Letters  from  G.  G. 

be     ...     might  be     ...     that  the  temp- 
tation of  "Things"  became  as  nothing. 

I  say  temptation,  tho'  according  to  Evelyn 
Innes,  temptation  is  no  temptation  if  it  can 
be  resisted,  and  by  the  light  of  the  flaming 
wing  the  temptation  appeared  not  tempting  at 
all. 

Why  should  one  marry? 

I  don't  see  why  any  one  should  ever  marry 
anybody  anyway!  Unless,  of  course,  they 
positively  couldn't  live  without  them.  And  as 
there  has  never  lived  a  man  I  couldn't  live 
without,  the  conclusion  is  obvious  that  I  have 
never  yet  seen  any  one  that  I  wanted  to  marry. 

"What!"  says  you,  "but  you've  been  af- 
fianced !" 

"True,  my  friend,"  says  I,  "but  that  proves 
nothing !" 

I  suppose  I  belong  to  what  Anne  in  "Man 
and  Superman"  calls  the  poetic  temperament, 
of  which  the  born  old  maid  tribe  is  composed, 
"amiable,  harmless,  poetic." 


Letters  from  G.  G.  159 

Have  you  ever  read  Aylwin?  Well,  it's  a 
good  story,  but  I'm  not  mentioning  it  for  the 
purpose  of  advising  your  reading  it.  I  want 
to  quote  a  passage  from  it: 

"Destiny,  no  doubt,  in  the  Greek  drama 
concerns  itself  only  with  the  Great.  But  who 
are  the  Great?  With  the  unseen  powers 
mysterious  and  imperious  who  govern  while 
they  seem  not  to  govern  all  that  is  seen,  who 
are  the  Great?  In  the  world  where  man's 
loftiest  ambitions  are  to  higher  intelligences 
childish  dreams,  where  his  highest  knowledge 
is  ignorancej,  where  his  strongest  strength  is 
derision  .  .  .  who  are  the  Great?  Are 
they  not  the  few  men,  women  and  children  on 
the  earth  who  greatly  love?" 

Now  remember,  I'm  agreeing  with  that 
definition  of  Greatness,  but  if  it  is  true,  are 
there  any  Great  Men  running  about  now? 
Tell  me  that;  you,  or  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  or 
anybody ! 

Don't  turn  around  and  tell  me  that  there  are 
no  women  extant  capable  of  inspiring  any 


160          Letters  from  G.  G. 

very  great  or  lasting  passion.  When  was  the 
length  or  depth  or  intensity  of  love  ever 
gauged  by  the  deserts  or  even  by  the  charms 
of  the  Beloved?  Love  is  measured  solely  by 
the  Lover's  capacity  for  loving. 

By  that  gauge,  no  great  women  around 
either,  I  expect  you'll  say?  Well,  I'm  not  in 
so  good  a  position  to  judge. 

But  I'll  tell  you  a  tale. 

It  is  called  the  Tale  of  the  Sceptic. 

You  see,  there  was  once  this  girl  who  ar- 
rived at  the  age  when  it  is  said  one  must  begin 
to  "coiffer  Sainte  Catherine." 

One  day  some  one  said  to  her,  "Of  course 
I  know  you  have  had  scores  of  adorers,  and  I 
dare  say  you  keep  somewhere  among  your 
possessions  a  most  interesting  collection  of 
memories — and  of  love  letters." 

He  said  it  in  a  wistful,  discouraged  voice, 
with  reproach  brimming  from  his  inveterately 
childlike  eyes,  as  who  should  say,  "Couldn't 
you  have  waited  until  I  came  ?" 

This  reminded  the  girl  that  down  in  the 


Letters  from  G.  G.  161 

country — "down  home,"  out  in  the  woodshed, 
she  thought,  or  was  it  in  the  attic?  was  a 
wooden  box — a  soap  box,  crammed  with  love 
letters.  She  had  treasured  them  all  carefully, 
thinking  that  some  day,  long  years  hence — 
when  all  the  world  was  old,  when  she  was  an 
old  maid — it  might  be  diverting,  gently  com- 
forting and  warming  to  sit  by  her  fire  corner 
and  read  over  those  tender  relics  of  her  golden- 
headed  days. 

When  midsummer  came  and  she  went  home 
for  the  long  warm  quiet  months,  she  searched 
for  the  box.  It  was  in  the  woodshed.  She 
had  it  carried  up  to  the  attic,  and  waited  for 
just  the  day,  which  should  seem  made  for  the 
reviving  of  old  memories,  the  calling  up  of 
the  tender  light  of  a  day  that  was  dead. 

It  did  not  come  until  the  fall,  then  in  late 
October  dawned  a  day  of  returned  summer 
heat,  with  veiling  mellowing  mists.  This  was 
just  the  time,  she  thought,  the  attic  was  just 
the  place,  and  she — well — she  who  had  been 
the  loved  one  climbed  up  the  steep  stairs. 


162  Letters  from  G.  G. 

At  last!  it  was  open — at  last  she  had  man- 
aged to  loosen  one  of  the  boards  of  the  cover, 
had  twisted  it  sidewise  and  could  put  in  her 
hand  far  enough  to  bring  out  one  fat  bundle 
after  another. 

One  was  tied  with  pink  ribbon,  one  with 
broad  blue  moire,  one  with  a  rubber  strap 
'which  crumbled  off  as  she  touched  it;  one 
with  a  violet  cord  and  tassel,  it  had  come 
tied  around  such  a  bunch  of  violets !  There 
were  plenty  tied  with  plain,  stout,  serviceable 
string. 

The  attic  was  suffocating.  The  sun  beat 
down  on  the  great  planks  and  beams  close 
overhead. 

She  dragged  the  box  near  the  window  and 
threw  up  the  sash.  A  great  puff  of  air  rushed 
in,  cool  and  sweet  scented.  Is  anything 
sweeter  than  the  wind  blowing  from  the  sea 
over  miles  of  pine  woods  and  cedar  swamps — 
and  sweet  fern  and  bay  bush ! 

Then  she  sat  down  on  the  floor,  leaning 
her  back  against  a  trunk,  and  began  to  read. 


Letters  from  G.  G.  163 

The  house  was  very  still.  She  read,  and 
read — and  read  .  .  . 

Here  among  the  pink  ribbon  letters  was  one 
which  said: 

"You  will  always  be  for  me  the  only  woman 
in  the  world.  That  has  been  decreed  by  a 
court  from  which  there  is  no  appeal." 

Her  first  love!  He  was  nineteen  when  he 
wrote  that  to  her — sixteen.  She  had  been 
tremendously  impressed  when  she  had  re- 
ceived it !  She  wondered  now,  with  an  indul- 
gent smile,  where  he  had  found  it,  dear  boy! 
He  was  sweet  in  those  days !  He  was  still 
charming  for  that  matter.  He  married  and 
went  to  live  in  Europe.  The  girl  had  seen  him 
a  couple  of  years  before.  He  had  come  on 
a  flying  visit  to  New  York,  was  sailing  the 
very  next  morning,  but  had  looked  her  up. 
She  found  him  waiting  when  she  came  home 
from  a  dinner  party,  and  they  sat  down  and 
had  one  of  their  old  chummy  talks  until  an 
unmentionably  late  hour. 

"Of  course  he  is  happy" — she  murmured  to 


164          Letters  from  G.  G. 

herself  now — "of  course  there  is  no  court  from 
which  there  is  no  appeal !" 

She  read  on.  This  was  the  blue  ribbon 
man.  There  were  not  many  of  his  letters,  but 
the  ribbon  symbolized  them.  In  one  he  said: 

"I  come  of  a  tenacious  clan,  and  I  shall 
never  give  up  the  hope  of  winning  you,  until 
cither  you  are  married  to  some  one  else 
(which  God  forbid)  or  I  am  dead — I  never 
loved  a  woman  before,  never  even  as  boy  did 
I  know  what  is  called  calf  love.  I  shall  never 
love  again." 

"Oh,  those  nevers"  she  sighed.  "How  long 
did  they  stand  for?"  Was  it  two  or  was  it 
three  years  later — it  was  two — that  he  married 
the  sweetest  little  smooth-haired,  blue-eyed 
woman  in  the  world !  The  girl  loved  her  and 
delighted  in  visiting  them  in  their  downy  nest, 
it  was  so  cozy  and  hearty  and  full  of  friendli- 
ness and  cheer. 

Here  came  the  rubber  strap  man.  What 
memories  of  good  times  his  handwriting  called 
up!  Most  of  his  letters  were  written  on  ath- 


Letters  from  G.  G.  165 

letic  club  paper,  or  yacht  club,  or  golf  club, 
or  some  kind  of  club.  He  was  the  man  who 
first  introduced  her  to  college  football  games. 
Those  were  the  days  when  the  sun  rose  and 
set  at  Cambridge.  He  had  also  been  the  first 
to  take  her  canoeing  on  the  river  and  he  had 
a  racing  yacht! 

Here  was  a  note,  one  of  the  last,  in  which 
he  said:  "I  may  be  foolish — you  have  often 
called  me  so,  but  the  fact  remains,  that  if  you 
stay  in  town,  I  stay — and  only  if  you  leave, 
and  go  where  1  can't  follow  you,  shall  I  go  on 
the  cruise.  You  know  that  I  want  to  be 
where  you  are,  now  and  always — always,  thoj 
you  seem  to  have  no  room  for  me  on  earth." 

Strangely  enough,  he  had  found  the  one 
who  was  really  the  Right  One — in  the  course 
of  that  very  cruise !  The  girl  had  met  him  in 
the  park  the  fall  before,  and  he  had  said,  smil- 
ing: "You  haven't  changed  a  bit  in  all  these 
years!  How  do  you  do  it?  I  wish  you'd 
come  and  see  us.  My  wife  wants  so  much  to 


1 66          Letters  from  G.  G. 

know    you.     I've    told    her    about    you,    you 

know !" 

Here  was  a  diverting  one.   His  letters  were 

written  in  purple  ink,  tied  with  a  gold  thread. 
The  dizzy  climax  he  climbed  to  was:  "For 
me  you  are  the  whole  show — the  whole 
thing!"  She  doubted  whether  to-day  he  re- 
membered her  name! 

And  so  on — through  the  list — and  here 
finally  was  one  of  whose  letters  there  were 
hundreds.  They  were  written  in  every  mood 
of  grave  and  gay,  but  the  burden  of  their  song 
was  ever  this:  "Life  is  not  long  enough  to 
prove  my  devotion  to  you.  All  time — all  eter- 
nity will  not  suffice  to  show  you  the  infinite 
depth  of  my  love !" 

Ah  me — no — all  eternity  had  not  been  re- 
quired— eighteen  months  had  sufficed.  He 
was  the  only  one  of  them  all  who  was  not 
married — yet — but,  bless  you!  There  was 
time  enough ! 

She  dropped  the  letters  and  looked  out  of 
"-the  window.  The  branches  of  the  wild-cherry 


Letters  from  G.  G.  167 

tree  made  such  a  pretty  pattern  against  the 
blue.  The  blue  was  beginning  to  deepen,  it 
must  have  been  not  far  from  sundown. 

She  sat  lost  in  thought.  All  feeling  of  time 
seemed  canceled.  She  could  not  have  toid 
at  that  moment  whether  she  were  living  to- 
day or  a  hundred  years  ago.  The  gallery  of 
these  people  who  had  been  so  real  to  her  once, 
so  much  a  part  of  her  life,  seemed  to  rise  and 
pass  before  her  like  ghosts.  All  these  sincere 
protestations,  and  they  had  been  sincere  at  the 
time  of  writing — she  gave  them  that  credit — 
had  meant  .  .  .  what? 

These  swains  had  found  others  upon  whom 
to  hang  their  vows,  others  who  answered  them 
in  their  own  key — gave  them  food  for  more 
vows,  and  a  peg  to  hang  their  hearts  upon. 
They  were  married  and  were  loving  and  faith- 
ful spouses,  as  they  would  doubtless  have  been 
had  she  herself  married  any  one  of  them — tho' 
there  the  "if"  that  blocked  the  path — was 
too  huge  even  to  be  peeped  over ! 

But  what  struck  her  with  force  was  the  fact 


1 68  Letters  from  G.  G. 

that  she  who  had  never  made  protestations  of 
undying  fidelity,  or  exaggerated  feeling  of  any 
kind — had  been  the  only  one  to  remain  true  to 
her  original  sentiments.  As  much  as  she  had 
loved  any  of  these  individuals,  she  still  loved 
them  to-day — and  she  had  been  fond  of  each 
in  some  measure,  tho'  in  no  case  fond  enough. 
She  was  the  only  faithful ! 

And  he  who  had  last  reiterated  the  old  re- 
frain, the  one  who  had  been  the  immediate 
cause  of  this  unearthing  of  old  love  letters, 
this  wholesale  resurrecting  of  past  emotions — 
oh,  dear  me  ...  would  he,  too  .  .  .  ? 
Why,  of  course! 

Ah,  well  .  .  .  she  could  have  wept  at 
that  thought — had  not  a  smile  trembled  in  the 
corner  of  her  mouth — or  she  could  as  easily 
have  laughed — had  there  not  been  something 
very  like  a  tear  in  the  corner  of  her  eye ! 

There  .  .  .  wasn't  that  a  nice  little 
story  ? 

And  all  these  many  sheets  I  have  covered 
sum  themselves  up,  after  all,  in  the  simple 


Letters  from  G.  G.  169 

statement  that  I  suppose  that  I  look  for  too 
much  from  love.  What  I  should  look  for  in 
the  happiness  that  love  would  bring  would  be 
something  worth  the  loss  of  everything  else* 
It  might  be  to  the  onlooker  blind,  unwise,  un- 
worthily bestowed,  wasted,  a  sacrifice,  a 
crime,  but  to  me,  I  should  look  for  its  making 
the  supreme  heaven  on  earth.  And — you  see 
— until  I  could  experience  so  sizeable  a  pas- 
sion, one  which  should  fill  that  very  large  bill, 
I  must  remain  as  I  am  .  .  . 

And  who  has  taught  me  this  ?  Who  indeed 
— who  but  he — who  but  my  Star — even  before 
I  came  into  the  world? 

G.  G.,  BROADWAY,  R.  F.  AT  HOME. 

Winter. 

A  young  Southern  girl  once  said  in  my 
hearing  that  she'd  love  to  write  a  book !  She 
didn't  know  whether  she  could  or  not,  she'd 
never  tried,  she  knew  anyhow  that  she  "had 
all  the  fine  feelin's"  to  make  one,  but  what  she 
was  not  sure  of  was  whether  she'd  know  how 


170  Letters  from  G.  G. 

to  set  'em  down — but  she  supposed  she  could 
learn,  etc. 

Now  the  book  that  is  wanting  to  push  its 
way  out  of  my  head  hasn't  a  glimmer  of  a 
"fine  feelin'  "  in  it.  In  fact,  as  far  as  I  can 
make  out,  my  book  would  be  a  descriptive 
catalogue  of  the  galleries  making  up  the  mu- 
seum of  more  or  less  precious  or  grotesque 
or  foolish  things  that  fill  my  memory.  The 
various  corridors  in  mine,  filled  with  speci- 
mens, shall  be  labelled,  for  instance:  "Scrub 
Ladies  I  Have  Employed."  Doesn't  that 
resurrect  them,  the  line  of  them?  Can't  you 
see  them  there,  standing  single  file :  the  bony, 
the  red-haired,  the  fat,  the  funny,  the  pretty- 
ish,  all  waiting  to  be  told  about,  each  a  char- 
acter, an  individuality,  with  some  sort  of  a 
history  that  makes  a  good  yarn? 

You've  never  had  to  do  with  Scrub  Ladies, 
of  course.  You'd  have  to  supplement  Type- 
writer ladies  in  your  volume. 

Let  me  see  now:  "Intimate  Enemies  I 
Have  Made,"  "Adoptive  Nieces  that  Have 


Letters  from  G.  G.  171 

Been  Born  to  Me,"  "Hand-Painted  Portraits 
I  Have  Sat  For/'  "Garrets  I  Have  Inhabited," 
"Clothes,  Pleasant  and  Unpleasant,  I  Have 
Inherited,"  "Tragedies  (my  own)  I  Have 
Lived  to  Laugh  At,"  "Love  I  Have  Recovered 
From,"  "Dreams  I  Have  Awakened  From" 
(the  last  three  synonymous),  "Spankings  I 
Have  Richly  Earned" —  Why,  there's  no  end 
to  the  chapters  that  immediately  spring  to 
mind.  Don't  you  call  those  thrilling  and  sug- 
gestive topics?  Don't  they  call  up  Harlequin 
sets  of  tableaux  in  your  own  past?  Doesn't 
each  heading  open  a  door  into  a  well-lighted 
room  lined  with  pictures,  some  dim  with  years, 
others  still  paint-wet,  portraying  people  and 
things  and  events  that  you've  known  ? 

Don't  you  want  to  write  a  companion  vol- 
ume to  mine  ? 

Go  ahead — Guinea — you  begin!  Tell  me, 
for  instance:  "The  Merry  Tale  of  Dear 
Friends  You  Have  Wanted  to  Kill,"  or  of 
"Engagements  of  Marriage  You  Have  Neg- 
lected to  Keep." 


172  Letters  from  G.  G. 

My  good  four-year-old  friend.  It's  a  long 
time,  four  years,  to  be  friends,  it  is  quite  a 
considerable  fraction  of  our  lives.  What  a  lot 
happens  in  four  years !  How  many  dreams 
are  fulfilled — how  many  hopes  dispelled,  how 
many  heart  aches  stilled — how  many  fears 
quelled  (sounds  like  verse — as  I  live!) — how 
many  moods  outlived!  Even  friendships  and 
loves  have  had  time  during  that  period  to 
spring  up,  to  bloom,  to  flourish  and  die! 
The  seasons  come  and  go — and  you  and  I 
stand  fast — where  we  stood  four  years  ago. 
Don't  you  think  it  is  nice  ?  So  few  things  re- 
main stationary,  everything  in  the  universe 
seems  either  waxing  or  waning,  growing  or 
decaying.  I  think  of  you  to-day,  I  receive 
your  letters  with  the  same  keen  thrill  of  ex- 
pectancy and  curiosity  as  I  did  at  the  begin- 
ning ;  I  know  strangely  little  of  you,  and  yet  I 
think  I  knew  you  from  the  first  hour. 


Letters  from  G.  G.  173 

G.  G.,  FLORIDA,  R.  F.  AT  HOME. 

Winter. 

You  see — it  had  to  be — I  had  to  be  "sent 
South" — though  that  expression  would  seem 
to  suggest  that  I  was  an  express  parcel.  I 
was  little  better  than  a  ridiculous  limp  bundle 
of  rags  when  I  arrived,  and  I'm  nothing  to 
boast  of  now.  I've  been  beastly  ill — R.  F. — 
and  I  reckon  I  am  yet.  If  you  are  one  of  the 
healthy,  who  have  been  wont  heretofore  to 
sneer  at  the  names  "Nervous  Prostration," 
and  "Nervous  Collapse,"  let  me  a  lay  a  stern 
injunction  upon  you  never  to  do  it  again!  If 
you  do — may  you  be  forgiven — for  you  know 
not  what  you  do !  I  was  once  upon  a  time 
that  sort  of  a  fool,  among  other  kinds,  myself, 
but  I've  been  learning  things,  learning  them 
"fast  and  frequent,"  and  in  such  wise  as  not 
to  forget  them  in  haste. 

There  is  another  nervous  prostrate  in  this 
house.  God  help  her — she's  been  at  it  for 
three  years!  Good  Heavens!  is  it  possible  I 
may  be  in  for  such  a  siege  as  that?  No,  no, 


174  Letters  from  G.  G. 

no,  no — it  simply  couldn't  be.  I'd  be  dead 
or  well  before  that — I'd  make  an  end  sooner. 
As  it  is — the  roof  has  sometimes  a  ghastly  and 
insistent  fascination  for  me.  Don't  be  alarmed 
— those  are  words — words — words. 

The  other  N.  P.  and  I  have  long  nerve-to- 
nerve  talks  about  our  symptoms!  It  would 
make  any  sane  well  person  howl  to  see  us  sit- 
ting close  with  eyes  dilate  and  agoggle  with 
horror — uttering  in  shuddering  whispers : 
"And  do  you  sometimes  feel  as  if  feathers 
were  growing  all  over  you  ?" 

"No — but  I  feel  as  if  my  tongue  and  my 
fingers  were  the  consistency  of  those  egg  bis- 
cuits, you  know — cracknells,  dry  and  brittle 
and  floury,  and  as  if  I  should  break  them  off  if 
I  were  not  very  careful !" 

"Oh-h-h-h-h-h-h !  I  know  that  sensation  ! 
And  do  you  ever,  in  the  night,  feel  as  if  you 
were  growing  and  growing  and  GROWING  and 
GROWING — until  you  filled  the  room— and 
would  presently  fill  all  the  world?" 

"Yes! — and  don't  you  sometimes  feel  as  if 


Letters  from  G.  G.  175 

you  were  growing  smaller  and  smaller  and 
smaller  and  smaller,  and  would  in  just 
one  more  moment  dwindle  and  disappear  en- 
tirely?" And  nothing  can  picture  to  you  the 
genuine  anguish  that  these  absurd  illusions 
represent,  though  as  I  said  before,  you  whose 
nerves  are  solid  would  look  upon  us  as  two 
mild  lunatics,  and  that,  I  suppose,  in  a  meas- 
ure is  what  we  are  .  .  . 

The  horror  is  in  not  knowing  where  it  will 
end.  Not  being  able  to  entirely  control  one's 
thoughts  and  motions  and  speech. 

That  is  why  I  shrieked  the  other  day  when 
I  found  that  I  couldn't  keep  one  of  my  feet 
still — it  would  jerk,  and  my  toes  would  wig- 
gle !  Any  sane  person  would  have  said  to 
me:  "Why,  for  pity's  sake,  let  'em  wiggle — 
where's  the  harm?  and  don't  make  such  a 
row !"  But  the  horror  lies  in  the  fact  that  if 
you  can't  keep  your  toes  from  wiggling — may- 
be— oh,  maybe  presently  you'll  be  unable  to 


176          Letters  from  G.  G. 

make  your  tongue  obey,  and  you'll  be  hearing 
it  utter  gibberish ! 


Oh,  the  nights !  I  think  they  have  contained 
enough  of  Hell  to  punish  me  for  all  my  sins 
past  and  to  come ! 

Mostly  I  lie  on  a  cot,  on  a  covered  veran- 
da. The  branches  of  a  huge  live  oak  almost 
sweep  me  off  it  on  a  windy  night.  The  tree  is 
full  of  birds ;  at  exactly  four  in  the  morning  a 
blue  jay  rings  the  alarm  clock,  for  the  score 
of  other  kinds  of  birds,  and  then  such  a  fuss ! 
They  all  begin  their  practice  for  the  day ;  it  is 
as  if  they  were  all  trying  their  voices,  clearing 
their  throats,  doing  exercises,  trills  and  scales 
and  snatches  of  melody  to  be  performed  later 
on. 

I  don't  speak  of  that  as  a  part  of  the  tor- 
ment of  the  night,  quite  the  contrary;  the 
night  and  the  dawn  are  full  of  the  sounds  of 
living  creatures  that  help  me  to  feel  that  the 
time  is  passing  and  that  if  only  I  can  hold  out 
and  wait  for  it,  day  will  come! 


Letters  from  G.  G.  177 

Some  nights  when  it  is  clear  and  dry,  I  take 
my  bed  out  on  the  roof,  and  there  lying  on  my 
back,  with  nothing  overhead,  I  can  watch  at 
ease  the  stately  procession  of  the  stars. 

I  spell  out  the  constellations  on  a  map  of 
the  heavens,  by  day,  and  verify  them  in  the 
sky  by  night.  I  have  plenty  of  time — for  the 
night  when  I  sleep  three  hours  is  a  sweet  and 
rare  one — 

In  the  face  of  the  incredibly  cool  statements 
of  astronomy,  how  utterly  silly  the  fear  of 
sleeplessness  seems!  Me  and  me  narves 
dwindle  down  to  our  proper  dimensions  when 
we  are  told  the  size  and  distance  of  Sirius, 
hundreds  and  hundreds  of  times  the  size  of 
our  Sun — and  look  at  him! 

Oh,  the  heavenly  restfulness  and  security 
that  come  of  realizing  oneself  part  of  a  scheme 
so  vast  and  so  precise !  It  does  seem  as  if  one 
ought  to  find  breathing  easy  with  so  much 
space;  one  ought  not  to  feel  crowded  and 
cramped  with  so  much  room! 

I  invite  you  to  go  a-visiting  the  stars  with 


178  Letters  from  G.  G. 

me  some  time.  We'll  make  an  extensive  tour. 
We'll  play  upon  the  Lyre,  and  ride  behind  the 
Swan  and  on  the  Dolphin's  back,  and  we'll  go 
and  pick  flowers  on  Jupiter  where  it  is  always 
spring.  Which  reminds  me — I  shall  miss  the 
spring  this  year.  There  is  none  to  speak  of 
down  here,  and  it  will  be  over  by  the  time  I 
go  North.  It  is  really  distressing,  for  there 
are  so  few  springs  in  a  lifetime  at  best,  and  to 
miss  the  charming  sights  of  the  world  seems 
like  not  living  at  all. 

It  has  taken  days  and  days  and  days  and 
days  to  write  you.  Since  I  last  wrote  I've 
been  much  worse;  I  believe  I'm  losing  ground. 
I  am  so  exhausted  that  it  seems  impossible  I 
should  continue  much  longer  to  make  the  ef- 
fort to  draw  breath. 

Is  it  dying  I  am  doing?  I'm  not  afraid  to 
go — but  I  also  appear  to  be  such  an  uncon- 
scionable time  doing  it ;  I'm  afraid  my  courage 
may  give  out.  I'd  like  to  do  it  nicely,  with 
head  up — and  if  it  takes  much  longer  I'm 


Letters  from  G.  G.  179 

afraid  I  may  have  to  do  it  crawling  and  ab- 
ject. In  any  case,  I  feel  I  must  be  about  pull- 
ing up  the  weeds  in  my  heart,  lest  I  carry  un- 
desirable things  with  me  into  the  next  world. 
I  ought  to  make  ready — for  I  am  not  fit  to  go 
without  ceremony  into  God's  presence.  I  fear 
that  I  have  never  lived  in  it. 

Your  letter  came  the  other  day.  I  am  so 
glad  to  hear  that  you  are  going  to  Italy! 
How  nice !  I  almost  take  your  going  as  a  per- 
sonal favor,  I  am  so  delighted  by  it.  How 
splendid  it  sounds !  A  tour  in  your  motor 
through  Italy,  France  and  Germany!  I  hope 
you'll  enjoy  it  as  much  as  it  sounds  as  if  you 
ought. 

You  ask  for  credentials  that  will  admit  you 
to  Montoro.  Here  they  are — and  another  to 
another  friend  near  Florence.  You'll  find  her 
a  dear — and  so  good  to  look  at,  and  she  lives 
in  a  charming  Villa  also.  I  wish  I  were  to  be 
there  to  show  you  things !  But  as  I  am  now 
I  should  not  be  of  much  use  to  you. 


180          Letters  from  G.  G. 

Do  you  remember  it  was  from  Florence  you 
first  wrote  me? 

I  want  to  ask  you  to  do  something  for  me  in 
Florence — but  it  will  have  to  be  another  day — 
this  must  go  now  to  catch  you,  and  I  have  for- 
gotten how  to  hurry. 

God  go  with  you,  dear  Pilgrim. 

G.  G.,  FLORIDA,  R.  F.,  ITALY. 

Spring. 

We  went  to  a  festival  at  the  Santissima 
Annunziata  one  Sunday,  Kitty  and  I.  It  was 
fearful  and  wonderful  how  little  air  and  how 
many  people  and  lighted  candles  and  burning 
incense-cages  were  crowded  into  the  place. 
The  little  air  was  owing  to  the  many  candles. 
The  least  draught  would  have  set  them  all 
a-flaring  and  a-guttering.  The  many  people 
were  there  to  see  the  spectacle  of  the  many 
golden  sparkling  candlelights.  The  much  in- 
cense was  burnt  and  sent  up  its  heavy  sweet- 
ness (and  it  needed  to  be  sweet)  because  of  the 
many  people ;  and  again,  because  of  the  many 


Letters  from  G.  G.  181 

people,  the  little  air — and  the  circle  is  com- 
plete. 

I  stayed  as  near  as  possible  to  the  main  en- 
trance, where  an  occasional  breath  from  out- 
side battered  its  way  in  past  the  heavy  curtain 
barring  the  great  doorway.  I  stood  near  the 
silver  altar  of  the  Miraculous  Virgin,  and  I 
along  with  the  crowd  sent  up  my  own  little 
private  prayer  that  She  bring  me  to  the  Land 
of  Heart's  Desire.  I  promised  that  if  She 
would,  I'd  give  Her  the  biggest  sterling  silver 
votive  heart  ever  manufactured. 

So  many  other  mortals  were  standing  and 
sitting  and  kneeling  there  beside  that  altar,  all 
addressing  themselves  to  Her,  that  She  hear 
and  intercede  for  them  with  Him,  that  they 
might  receive  whatever  it  was  they  craved,  or 
be  given  patience  and  resignation  to  do  with- 
out. 

With  the  rest  I  went  up  to  the  altar  arid 
right  devoutly  kissed  the  right-hand  corner  of 
the  silver  slab,  carried  on  the  current  of  the 
surrounding  Catholic  faith  and  devotion 


1 82  Letters  from  G.  G. 

.  .  .  and  then,  Yankee  that  I  am,  with 
certain  simple  notions  of  hygiene  and  mi- 
crobes and  what-not — I  suddenly  nervously 
battled  my  way  out  of  the  poisonous  air  to 
the  door,  and  dashed  for  home,  to  inhale  cre- 
osote and  gargle  Listerine ! 

Kitty,  carried  away  by  neither  the  fervor  of 
prayer,  nor  panic  fear  of  contagion,  stayed 
sanely  on,  and  came  home  in  time  for  lunch, 
having  waited  until  the  service  was  over,  and 
stopped  to  see  the  candles  put  out  by  two  men 
in  white  gowns,  climbing  tall  ladders,  and 
bearing  extinguishers  on  the  end  of  long  poles, 
and  acting  symmetrically  in  unison,  one  on 
either  side  of  the  High  Altar. 

At  lunch  she  said :  "I  want  you  to  go  with 
me  after  we've  finished  eating.  I  want  to 
show  you  something." 

She  wouldn't  tell  me  what,  and  I  followed 
somewhat  mystified.  She  had  a  parcel,  rather 
large,  in  hand.  She  led  me  to  the  Piazza  of 
the  Annunziata.  You  know  the  Foundlings' 
Hospital,  the  Innocenti,  is  on  the  left  of  the 


Letters  from  G.  G.  183 

church.  To  the  right  is  another  building,  it 
looks  rather  like  the  Innocenti.  A  flight  of 
several  steps  leads  up  to  the  colonnade  that 
forms  the  entire  lower  story  front  of  it.  In 
the  face  of  one  of  the  lower  steps  is  a  series 
of  semi-circular  openings,  grated,  all  but  two. 
Kitty  stopped  there,  at  the  open  holes ;  she  was 
most  mysterious  and  I  most  curious. 

She  opened  her  parcel,  it  was  full  of  scraps 
and  bones;  she  dropped  bits  of  meat  at  each 
of  the  openings,  and  then  ...  I  shall 
never  forget.  .  .  . 

She,  Ignorance,  plunged  upon  the  food  from 
one  of  the  holes,  with  a  murderous  hiss  and 
snarl,  and  vanished  back  into  her  dark  cavern 
with  it ;  and  slowly,  timidly,  apologetically,  he, 
Poor  Old  One,  crept  out  and  sniffed  appre- 
ciatively at  his  little  scrap,  and  then  settled 
down  to  the  near  forgotten  ceremony  of  feed- 
ing himself  to  real  food ! 

Piece  after  piece  we  placed  before  the  holes, 
and  time  after  time  she  accepted  hers  with 
curses  and  imprecations,  he  with  humility 


184          Letters  from  G.  G. 

and  thanks.  I  don't  know  which  was  the  more 
pitiful  object.  Ignorance  (we  came  to  call 
her  that  in  the  course  of  many  days'  acquain- 
tance) was  a  small  yellow  gutter  cat,  she 
could  never  have  been  other ;  she  was,  her  fig- 
ure announced,  doing  her  best  to  perform  a 
good  mother's  duty  by  a  family  somewhere  in 
that  pestilential  recess  under  the  steps,  but 
nothing  so  emaciated  ever  existed  outside  a 
caricature  cat  in  a  comic  paper.  She  had  no 
neck  to  speak  of,  her  head,  fastened  to  her 
body  by  a  spine  and  no  more,  was  all  hate — 
glaring  sulphurous  eyes,  enormous  bat  ears, 
and  spitting  grin;  she  was  the  shape  of  a 
knife  blade,  and  her  fur  was  all  in  tatters,  off 
in  patches,  from  battles  and  mange.  Her  poor 
twig  of  a  tail  lashed  sullenly,  and  she  was 
weak,  so  weak,  but  for  the  intense  strength  of 
her  resentment  and  venom  against  all  the 
world.  After  the  first  few  courses  in  her 
meal,  when  she  no  longer  needed,  hunger- 
driven,  to  pounce  like  a  flash  upon  her  prize, 
she  seemed  to  take  comfort  in  lying  just  with- 


Letters  from  G.  G.  185 

in  the  mouth  of  her  cave,  like  a  wild  beast  in 
its  lair,  growling  and  hissing  insults  at  us  for 
standing  there  watching  her.  She  said  in  in- 
telligible, unmistakable  cat  talk :  "Give  it  here 
all  at  once,  give  it  quick,  and  get  out  of  my 
sight,  and  curses  on  you  1" 

And  he,  Poor  Old  One,  had  belonged  to 
people  once,  I  think,  one  could  tell  by  his  rem- 
nants of  sweet  manners ;  a  tortoise-shell,  as  far 
as  one  could  make  out  from  the  few  shreds  of 
fur  remaining  on  him,  but  oh !  the  unfortu- 
nate! he  was  a  crazy  patchwork  of  scars  and 
wounds  and  sores  and  scaly  scabs,  and  I  don't 
believe  he  could  see.  .  .  . 

»But  he  crouched  half-in,  half-out  of  his 
hole,  and  crunched  his  bones  and  food,  making 
a  rattling,  raucous  sound  that  intended  to  be 
a  purr,  but  had  got  all  distorted  and  queer  be- 
cause he  had  seen  such  sad,  bad  times !  and 
when  he  had  finished  one  bit,  he  held  up. a 
tragic  sightless  head,  sniffing  the  air  for  more  i 

Kitty  had  seen  them  first  upon  coming  out 
of  the  church  in  the  morning.  They  had  ven- 


1 86  Letters  from  G.  G. 

tured  out  of  their  holes,  and  were  lapping  a 
few  drops  of  water  blown  out  of  the  fountain 
into  a  little  puddle  between  two  stones,  and 
Ignorance  had  smelled  hungrily  at  an  old  bit 
of  orange-peel. 

There  are  no  areaways  in  Florence,  no  gar- 
bage cans  where  gutter  cats  can  scrape  a  liv- 
ing, there's  nothing  for  them  .  ,  .  noth- 
ing. .  .  .  There  was  a  custom  once,  such 
a  kind  one  for  the  kitties :  At  noon  each  day  a 
monk  from  the  Church  of  San  Lorenzo  used 
to  give  food  to  any  cats  that  wanted  it  enough 
to  come  to  him  for  it,  and  oh !  there  were 
plenty  in  waiting  for  him !  But  what  has  be- 
come of  the  custom?  Where  bides  the  good 
Saint  o'  Cat's  Meat? 

Well,  that  Sunday  began  it.  Every  day 
after,  until  we  came  away  from  Florence  five 
weeks  later,  either  Kitty  or  I,  or  both,  carried 
food  to  the  starvelings. 

Once,  for  three  days  Poor  Old  One  didn't 
appear.  We  put  food  at  his  door,  but  Igno- 
rance ate  it  as  well  as  her  own.  We  wondered 


Letters  from  G.  G.  187 

if  she  had  not  perhaps  made  way  with  him  for 
the  sake  of  his  share,  killed  him  for  his  Life 
Insurance,  but  presently  he  reappeared.  She 
was  always  there  in  waiting,  growling  the 
moment  she  heard  our  footsteps.  And  so  it 
was  to  the  end.  On  the  last  day  Poor  Old 
One  came  out,  and  made  a  pathetic,  dreadful 
attempt  to  rub  up  against  Kitty's  skirt,  but 
Ignorance,  wild-cat,  hell-cat,  if  anything 
loathed  us  more  poisonously  the  last  day  than 
the  first.  Dear,  dear,  dear,  how  she  detested 
us! 

Anyway,  they  both  had  one  spell  in  their 
lives  of  sleeping  on  full  stomachs ! 

And  I  reckon  there's  a  Moral  there  some- 
where, too,  if  one  were  energetic  enough  to 
find  it,  which  I'm  not. 

And  now  that  you  are  going  to  Florence, 
I  want  you  to  do  two  things  for  me.  Go  to 
the  church  of  the  Annunziata  and  send  up  a 
little  prayer  for  me  at  that  Silver  Altar,  and 
maybe  buy  and  set  burning  for  me  a  candle 
of  white  wax  that  I  may  have  the  thing  I 


i88  Letters  from  G.  G. 

wish,  which  is  to  be  well  .  .  .  and  then, 
on  your  way  out,  find  the  good  dame  who  sits 
under  the  portico  with  her  basket,  buy  of  her 
a  rosemary  bun,  or  two,  and  then  go  to  the 
Cave  o'  the  Cats. 

Ignorance  and  Poor  Old  One  are  of  course 
long  turned  to  dust,  but  I  dare  be  sworn  there 
are  cats  of  the  same  stamp  crawling  in  their 
stead. 

Give  them  for  me  a  memorial  crumb. 

G.  G.  IN  THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS,  R.  F., 
SWITZERLAND. 

Spring. 

So  you  have  beheld  Montoro  in  its  sweet 
spring  dress  of  roses  and  irises  and  white 
lilies. 

Yes,  it  is  something  to  be  grateful  to  me 
for.  One  must  ever  feel  richer  for  having 
the  memory  of  it  stored  away  among  one's 
possessions.  I  feel  that  I  own  nothing  more 
than  I  do  that  place.  I  incorporated  it  into 
my  system  the  last  time  I  was  there,  I  can  feel 


Letters  from  G.  G.  189 

every  aspect  of  it;  none  perhaps  more  than 
the  deserted  round  garden  at  the  upper  end  of 
the  green,  and  the  balustrade  under  the  statue 
of  Diana  at  the  foot  of  it,  leaning  against  which 
I  have  seen  the  Beautiful  City  by  every  light 
of  night  and  day.  But  then  .  .  .  when 
you've  said  that,  you  feel  you  must  go  on  and 
enumerate  every  corner  of  the  place,  every 
inch  of  which  is  inexpressibly  beautiful. 

I'm  glad  you  saw  Lady  Grey,  and  glad  you 
realized  her  wonderfulness. 

Yes,  I  have  been  horribly  ill,  but  I'm  better 
now,  and  I  think  I'm  going  to  be  well,  tho' 
even  now  I  find  it  difficult  to  imagine  it,  I  was 
so  sure  that  no  one  could  ever  go  through 
what  I  did,  and  come  out  of  it  into  life  and 
light  and  health  again. 

I  can't  look  upon  this  illness  as  a  loss  of 
time,  but  merely  a  time  of  trial,  and  I  have 
learned  things  and  seen  things  which  I  can 
never  forget. 

After  the  blackest  hour  of  my  life,  I  saw 
what  eyes  of  flesh  do  not  see,  I  heard  what 


190          Letters  from  G.  G. 

cars  do  not  hear.  I  know  what  the  people 
of  old  underwent  who  saw;  I  know  that  it 
requires  a  combination  of  the  excess  of  phys- 
ical fatigue,  with  the  extremest  mental  alert- 
ness and  activity.  One  stands  in  an  untrod- 
den wilderness,  away  from  every  one,  from  all 
one  has  ever  known  before,  and  then  one  sees, 
hears,  learns  and  knows  things  to  which  one 
has  been  blind  and  deaf;  in  a  blinding  flash 
one  learns  the  meaning  of  everything;  and  I 
don't  think  the  radiance  of  it  can  ever  quite 
desert  one. 

As  the  weeks  go  by,  and  I  rub  up  against 
the  world  and  people  again,  I  feel  it  fading 
and  slipping  from  me,  but  even  so,  R.  F., 
everything  is  so  changed — you  don't  know! 
It  was  always  beautiful  enough  to  me,  but 
now  Life  seems  so  miraculous,  so  truly  God- 
given,  God-like,  nay,  so  truly  God's  very  self, 
that  to  willingly  kill  or  hurt  even  a  blade  of 
grass  or  an  ant  is  impossible.  I  have  a  feeling 
of  kinship  with  the  very  stones  and  elements, 
say  nothing  of  man  and  beast.  We  are  all 


Letters  from  G.  G.  191 

made  of  precisely  the  same  stuff,  and  that 
stuff  happens  to  be  God ! 

How  strange  it  is,  and  yet  how  absurdly 
natural  and  simple. 

To  think  how  lately  it  seemed  to  me  that 
existence  could  hold  in  store  for  me  nothing 
that  would  repay  me  for  what  I  was  suffering, 
and  now — the  result  has  been  an  experience 
so  beyond  words  wonderful,  that  for  the  sake 
of  attaining  it  I  would  go  through  all  again; 
and  that  is  putting  it  as  strongly  as  I  can. 

"Who  found  for  you  the  waters  that  soothed  your 

heart-break  first?" 
"Oh,  who  but  these,  my  Sorrow,  my  Hunger,  and 

my  Thirst." 
"Who  made  your  eyes  the  wiser  to  hail  the  farthest 

star?" 
"Who  but  my  Dark  I  thanked  not,  my  Dark  where 

no   stars  are." 


I  wonder  has  it  ever  come  to  you,  the  plain, 
undiluted  Genius  that  has  gone  to  the  invent- 
ing of  every  last  trifling  detail  in  the  creation 
of  this  wonderful,  wonderful  beautiful  world. 


192  Letters  from  G.  G. 

and  of  our  wonderful  beautiful  selves  who  are 
all  one  and  indivisibly  He?  When  you  re- 
flect that  nothing  is  chance,  that  every  atom 
has  had  to  be  thought  out  and  executed — and 
then  look  at  the  effects  produced!  It  makes 
me  gasp  with  delight  to  think  of  the  Poet  and 
the  Artist  and  the  Inventor  and  the  Mechanic 
that  went  to  the  making  of  it  all!  Think  of 
inventing  the  smell  of  sweet  peas  and  wet 
earth.  Look  at  that  inspired  aspen-tree,  rip- 
pling and  winking  like  water  in  the  sun,  flick- 
ering like  flame,  sounding  like  an  elfin  caval- 
cade— and  look  at  that  fountain  of  green 
spray  that  calls  itself  an  elm !  You  hear  peo- 
ple talk  about  Japanese  art  ...  Just  look, 
look  at  the  grasses  balancing  on  the  edge  of 
the  road,  with  their  lovely  shadows  at  their 
feet! 

Isn't  it  strange,  the  great  meaning  things 
can  come  to  have  for  us  which,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  do  not  exist  at  all?  I  don't  know 
whether  I  can  explain  what  I  mean,  but  take. 
for  example  the  mountains. 


Letters  from  G.  G.  193 

I  can  look  up,  as  I  write,  and  see  them  over 
there,  and  as  you  read  you  will  look  up  and 
see  those  others  before  you.  They  are  'way 
off  in  the  horizon,  they  stand  so  sweet  and  dim 
and  pensive,  one  coherent  silhouette  from  top 
to  foot,  one  lovely  blot  of  color,  and  the  ten- 
der message  they  send  us  across  space  is  so 
calm,  so  full  of  assurance  and  peace,  their 
charm  is  so  mystic,  so  subtle,  themselves  are 
so  adorably  grave — and — we  love  them. 

But  that  is  not  the  mountain  at  all !  The 
real  mountain  is  the  one  we  climb.  It  has  its 
charm,  but  it  is  totally  other  than  that  other! 
The  charm  of  detail,  of  cool  shade  and  danc- 
ing lights,  and  cloud  shadows,  winding  paths 
and  grateful  brooks,  of  solidity,  reliability,  and 
then  there  are  open  faces  of  rock,  and  rusty 
patches  of  hewn  or  burnt  forest,  blemishes 
unseen  in  the  distance,  yet  not  unlovable. 

And  the  stars!  What  we  see  are  not  the 
stars  at  all !  They  are  great,  awful  cataclys- 
mic things,  whirling  and  sizzling  away;  and 
what  we  think  them  is  the  very  essence  of  re- 


194  Letters  from  G.  G. 

pose  and  imperturbability,  "still  steadfast, 
still  unchangeable,"  and  we  love  what  the  dis- 
tance makes  them  seem,  which  is  not  in  the 
least  what  they  are  at  close  range. 

And  you  and  I,  at  our  immeasurable  dis- 
tance? There  it  is!  We  cherish  an  aspect 
which  certainly  is  there  for  us,  is  perhaps  in 
some  mysterious  way  as  real  as  any  other,  but 
we  can't  say  we  love  the  real  thing,  can  we? 
because  we  don't  know  the  real  thing.  The 
real  thing  may  be  just  as  worthy  to  be  loved, 
but  it  certainly  is  different  from  that  to  which 
we  have  pinned  our  affection. 

You  know  so  absurdly  little  of  me,  really! 
You  only  know  what  I  have  chosen,  selected 
to  tell  you.  I  have  a  notion  that  I  know  you 
much  better,  for  you  are  une  dme  sans  detours 
— and  I  fear  I  am  not. 

G.  G.,  NEW  LONDON,  R.  R,  CALIFORNIA 

Summer. 

Has  it  been  unkind,  dear,  letting  all  these 
months  go  by  without  sending  you  a  single 


Letters  from  G.  G.  195 

word?  I  have  no  excuse  to  offer.  I  couldn't 
write,  that  was  all.  I  had  no  answer  for  your 
unanswerable  letters  from  California,  and 
silence  seemed  the  only  reception  I  could  give 
them.  I  had  nothing  to  say.  I  am  not  sure 
now  that  I  know  what  to  say,  but  suddenly,  I 
feel  that  I  can  write  you,  where  before  I 
couldn't. 

If  you  remember  at  all  the  little  tale  that  I 
once  told  you  concerning  a  certain  Sceptic, 
you  will  realize  that  I  am  not  likely  to  be  dis- 
proportionately impressed  by  avowals  of  undy- 
ing, exclusive  devotion  and  faith — and  all  the 
rest  of  it. 

This  seems  to  carry  with  it  a  tone  of  sever- 
ity which  I  am  far  from  feeling  or  wishing  to 
assume.  I  think,  however,  that  your  attitude 
puts  me  rather  on  the  defensive. 

Do  you  remember  the  night  before  you  left 
Paris  years  ago  ?  Do  you  remember  how  often 
in  the  course  of  the  evening  you  said  and  re- 
peated and  repeated  again:  "You  don't  know 
how  I  shall  miss  you!"  "You  have  no  idea 


196  Letters  from  G.  G. 

how  I  am  going  to  miss  you !"  and  finally,  al- 
most exasperated,  "But  you  don't  in  the  least 
seem  to  realize  how  dreadfully  I'm  going  to 
miss  you!"  You  nearly  made  a  grievance  of 
it  that  in  those  few  days  I  should  have  suc- 
ceeded in  leaving  a  scratch  upon  your  glassy 
surface!  You  came  near  taking  me  to  task. 

And  now  you  speak  (I  say  now,  it  was 
months  ago,  of  course)  of  the  Prince  in  the 
Arabian  Nights  who  sickened  for  love  of  the 
Princess's  portrait,  and  you  say  that  you  have 
fallen  in  love  with  my  portrait  of  myself,  by 
which  you  seem  to  make  me  responsible.  My 
Portrait  of  Myself.  Have  I  written  you  a  por- 
trait of  myself?  I  can't  help  wishing,  R.  F.,' 
that  I  could  see  it.  What  a  funny  muscau 
chiffoune  I  must  have  given  myself!  Incoher- 
ent, contradictory,  illogical,  you  surely  aren't 
going  to  put  the  blame  on  me  if  you  have  fallen 
in  love  with  anything  so  ornery  and  no  ac- 
count and  po'  white  as  G.  G.? 

I  really  think  it  is  /  who  should  feel  injured. 
We  were  playing  such  a  nice  little  game !  And 


Letters  from  G.  G.  197 

it  wasn't  in  the  game,  you  know,  that  we 
should  become  people — it  was  all  to  be  pen, 
ink,  and  paper !  I  warned  you  time  and  time 
again  that  I  would  never  "materialize." 

And  now,  R.  F.,  seriously — there  is  just  one 
thing  in  your  letter  that  you  are  not  permitted 
to  say  .  .  .  that  I  won't  have!  and  that 
is  your  grand  finale,  your  trump  card,  your 
thunderous  statement: 

"You  have  made  all  other  women  in  the 
world  forever  impossible  for  me!" 

My  dear,  dear  child!  How  excruciatingly 
funny  that  is  going  to  look  to  you  some  day, 
and  if  I'm  any  sort  of  a  Prophet  that  day  is 
close  at  hand ! 

No,  dear  Boy,  there  is  a  special  name  for 
people,  who  being  impossible  themselves, 
make  other  things  and  people  impossible,  and 
I  do  assure  you,  that's  not  the  kind  of  a  dog 
lam! 

And  now — please,  please,  dear,  let's  forget 
all  about  it.  Write  me — write  me  soon — and 
tell  me  all  about  yourself. 


198  Letters  from  G.  G. 

You  see  where  I  am — I  am  visiting  dear 
friends — having  a  glorious  time.  There  is 
the  loveliest  yacht,  a  racer,  a  magnificent 
creature  that  wins  cups  and  things ;  and  a  new 
red  devil  car,  and  lots  of  horses  and  traps,  and 
myriad  books,  and  the  loveliest  house,  with  a 
Hall  in  it  that  is  the  most  satisfactory  room 
I've  ever  seen  in  America,  and  such  a  garden ! 
I'm  sitting  in  an  arbor  now,  smothered  in 
crimson  rambler,  so  vivid  it  looks  incandescent 
like  live  coals,  as  if  it  would  burn  my  hand  if 
I  touched  it — and  outside  I  can  see  great 
patches  of  cool  Japanese  iris — and  the  sea  be- 
yond. 

Best  of  all  are  the  people,  my  beloved  and 
wonderful  hostess,  and  my  fascinating  and 
wonderful  host. 

I  went  to  see  the  Harvard- Yale  boat  race 
the  other  day,  saw  it  from  the  deck  of  the 
most  splendid  yacht,  a  regular  ocean  liner — a 
yacht  fit  to  go  round  the  world  in.  I  didn't 
know  how  greatly  I  cared  about  the  outcome. 
I  supposed  myself  quite  indifferent,  until  sud- 


Letters  from  G.  G.  199 

denly  it  came  to  me  that  it  really  wouldn't  be 
fair  were  Yale  to  win.  It  had  won  so  often ! 
and  I  had  never  seen  one  of  those  races,  and 
now  that  I  was  there  to  see — why,  of  course 
Harvard  must  win !  And  when  the  boats  hove 
in  sight  with  Harvard  in  the  lead,  I  yelled  my- 
self voiceless  and  felt  tears  rush  down  my 
face,  emotion,  joy,  gratitude — gratitude  as 
great  as  if  the  victory  had  been  planned  solely 
for  my  small  private  gratification. 

It  made  me  no  less  sorry  for  the  crew  of 
Yale  boys  sculling  up  the  "backway"  after- 
wards, with  one  lying  unconscious  in  the  bot- 
tom of  the  boat,  while  the  Harvard  boys  pulled 
up  the  front  way  over  the  course  to  the  toot- 
ing of  whistles  and  sirens,  and  cheering  of 
the  crowds  and  braying  of  bands. 

But  somehow — it  seemed  so  right  and  fit, 
that  Harvard  should  have  its  taste  of  victory. 

The  evil  day  of  my  getting  back  into  har- 
ness has  been  put  off — and  off — I  have  spent 
months  with  these  dear  people,  and  when  the 
time  comes  for  work,  and  struggle  again — I 


200  Letters  from  G.  G. 

shall  be  a  giant  refreshed  by  all  these  days 
of  luxurious  care-free  idleness. 

Nerves  are  slow  things  to  mend.  I  thought 
I  was  well  long  ago,  but  I  soon  found  how  little 
reserve  strength  I  had — all  the  reservoirs 
and  pools  were  exhausted,  drained  dry,  and  it 
needed  this  long,  long  lapse  of  loafing  to  give 
them  time  to  slowly  filter  full  again,  and  now 
I  feel  as  if  nothing  would  ever  tire  me  in  this 
world.  I  have  hours,  days,  weeks  at  a  time 
of  walking  about  two  feet  above  the  ground, 
treading  on  a  current  of  sparkling  air,  when 
I  feel  so  full  of  vigor  and  power  that  I  am 
convinced  that  were  I  to  lay  the  flat  of  my 
hand  against  the  Times  Building  and  push — 
it  must  topple  over.  When  I  feel  there  is  no 
miracle  so  amazing  it  could  not  easily  be  per- 
formed ;  when  I  am  permeated,  saturated  with 
the  feeling:  All's  well! 

I  could  not  write  you  so,  dear  Friend,  were 
I  not  sure  that  all's  well  with  you — write  and 
tell  me  just  how  well.  I  wish  you  were  here 


Letters  from  G.  G.  201 

to  tell  me !  I  am  going  to  a  ball  to-night.  If 
you  were  here  we  would  dance  and  dance  and 
dance  together — to  the  tune  of  our  vast  con- 
tent. 

I  wonder  what  you  are  doing  this  very  day. 
What  are  you  seeing,  feeling,  saying?  It  is  so 
long  since  I  heard  from  you!  It  is  startling 
sometimes  to  remember  that  tho'  I  never  see 
you — and  tho'  I  may  not  have  thought  of  you, 
even,  for  a  "considerable  spell" — yet  you  are 
going  on  just  the  same — like  .Niagara  and 
Athens,  and  the  Nile  and  the  North  Pole — a 
continuous  performance  and  I  not  in  the 
audience !  Don't  you  sometimes  resent  it, 
too?  Realizing  that  people  are  living  their 
lives,  having  their  laughs  and  their  bits  of  tri- 
umphs and  their  heartaches  and  you  with  no 
part  in  them — not  in  it ! 

And  so  I  wonder  on  this  lazy,  hot,  drowsy 
afternoon,  just  what  is  uppermost  in  your 
mind,  of  whom  you  are  thinking  oftenest, 
what  is  interesting  you  most  nowadays  ?  Your 


2O2  Letters  from  G.  G. 

last  letters  notwithstanding,  I  permit    myself 
the  liberty  of  doubting  that  it  is  // 

G.  G. 

Telegram. 
G.  G.  TO  R.  F. 

I  knew  it — knew  it — knew  it.  Felt  it  in  the 
marrow  of  my  bones.  Oh,  I'm  so  glad — so 
happy,  and,  my  best  Friend,  I  have  so  much 
to  tell  you  myself,  seems  like  I'd  burst. 

G.  G.,  LENOX,  R.  F.,  CALIFORNIA. 

Summer. 

What  a  dear,  funny  world  it  is,  and  what  a 
dear,  funny  Boy !  When  I  read  your  letter 
I  leaned  back  and  laughed  and  laughed  and 
laughed,  and  then  I  grinned  for  the  rest  of 
the  day.  I'm  still  grinning!  I'm  grinning  the 
grin  that  won't  come  off.  There  are  so  many 
reasons  for  it  that  if  one  or  two  or  ten  were  to 
fail,  there  would  still  be  enough  left  to  keep 
me  grinning  until  my  skull  turns  to  mould. 

Oh,  Guinea,  dear,  dear  Guinea,  I'm  so  glad 


Letters  from  G.  G.  203 

for  you!  and  I'm  so  happy  on  my  own  hook 
that: 


'•  And  who  has  been  happiest?     Oh  I  think  it  is  I — 
I  think  no  one  was  ever  happier  than  I." 

I  don't  know  where  to  begin,  at  your  end  of 
it,  or  my  own.  I'll  be  polite.  I'll  attend  to 
your  story  first — mine  will  keep. 

The  opening  of  your  letter  was  the  most  de- 
licious piece  of  writing  I  ever  read!  You 
stated  that  you  wanted  to  write,  and  you 
wanted  to  write;  that  you  had  before  shame- 
lessly covered  reams  of  paper  with  stuff  that 
was  of  no  moment  whatever — and  now  here 
you  had  some  real  news  to  tell  me  and  you 
couldn't  bring  yourself  to  tell  it,  because — you 
didn't  know  how  to  make  it  fit  on  to  your  last 
letter,  the  letter  that  ended  in  such  a  blaze 
of  glory ! 

Oh,  dearest  Boy,  why  should  you  have 
wanted  it  to  fit!  Why  should  anything  ever 
fit — except  my  wedding  clothes !  Have  you 


204  Letters  from  G.  G. 

yet  to  learn  that  nothing  follows  because  of 
anything  else ;  and  that  the  man  who  steals 
pennies  out  of  a  blind  man's  dog's  cup  may  in 
the  next  hour  give  his  life  to  save  that  dog's  ? 

Besides — to  my  idea — it  did  fit!  Given 
that  a  man  in  March  ends  a  very  spirited  and 
highly  colored  letter  with  a  crl  dc  cccur  like: 
"You  have  made  all  other  women  forever  im- 
possible for  me,"  of  course  the  inevitable  next 
step  is  that  in  May  he  gains  the  consent  of 
the  "prettiest  girl  in  California"  to  be  his! 

However,  I  forbid  you  to  call  anything  that 
I've  ever  written  you  cynical.  Don't  you  dare 
say  cynical  to  me!  If  there,  was  raillerie  in 
my  last  letter  to  you,  Dearie  Boy,  the  raillerie 
was  so  gentle  as  to  be  positively  tender.  And 
do  you  say  cynical  to  me  ? 

Goto!     Goto! 

And  now  to  the  point.  I'm  simply  dc- 
lighted!  Nothing  could  be  nicer  than  your 
falling  in  love  (seriously  in  love,  this  time, 
you  know)  with  that  Girlorother  I've  been 
telling  you  about  for  so  long-,  and  getting  mar- 


Letters  from  G.  G.  205 

ried.  Nothing  could  be  nicer  except  my  do- 
ing the  same — but — hold  on — that  comes  later. 
It's  so  hard  to  wait  to  tell  you,  Guinea ! 

Well — haven't  I  been  telling  you  this  fifty 
years  that  I  longed  to  see  you  carried  away 
by  art  enthusiasm — a  passion,  that  should 
sweep  you  off  your  feet,  and  make  you  stand 
on  your  head,  and  turn  handsprings,  or  do 
something  spontaneous  and  HOT! 

Well — there  now — it  has  come  to  pass. 
Bless  the  Girl  that  did  the  trick!  I  wish  I 
could  see  her !  and  yet  why  ?  Je  la  vois  d'ici. 
she  is  jolie  a  croquer,  and  fresh  and  young, 
and  sweet  and  altogether  entrancing,  and,  now 
don't  be  cross,  she  thinks  you  the  wisest, 
cleverest,  most  knowing  man  in  all  the  Uni- 
verse. Tell  me — do  you  write  verses  to  her 
wonderful  eyebrows? 

And  you  are  going  to  work — too!  Oh,  I 
am  glad!  Actually — all  my  best  wishes  for 
your  welfare  coming  true — Love  and  work ! 
and  such  splendid  work — to  go  and  live  in  the 
great  ruined  city,  and  help  build  it  up  again — 


206  Letters  from  G.  G. 

and  make  it  better  and  more  beautiful  than 
before.  That's  a  Man's  work !  I  heave  a 
great  sigh  of  satisfaction  whenever  I  have  time 
to  think  of  it. 

There  is  just  one  wee  sma'  point  of  pain  in 
it  all  for  me — Is  your  being  a  married  gentle- 
man going  to  make  it  that  I  shall  know  you 
no  more?  Shall  I  hear  no  more  from  you? 
Shall  you  never  again  be  inspired  to  write  me 
just  what  you  truthfully  think  about  things? 
Will  the  Lovely  Fair  look  askance  upon  your 
fat  letters  and  mine?  She  would  be  so  more 
than  welcome  to  see  either  if  she  cared  to — 
and  then — tho'  this  she  would  never  guess,  or 
believe  if  she  were  told — you  are  probably 
really  just  a  grain  a  nicer  person  for  your  five 
years'  course  in  Polite  Correspondence  than 
you  would  have  been  without. 

I  don't  want  to  lose  my  Friend.  Were  I 
to  misquote  the  Book,  I  might  say  that  there 
are  men  for  all  things:  Men  with  whom  to 
talk,  to  walk,  to  read,  to  laugh ;  men  to  eat 
with,  to  drink  with,  to  dance  with,  to  flirt 


Letters  from  G.  G.  207 

with;  men  to  hate,  and  men  to  love;  and  A 
MAN — yes — Guinea — there  is  A  MAN  to 
marry ;  so  also  there  is  a  man  to  write  to  and 
that's  you! 

And  am  I  going  to  lose  you  ? 

And  now  I've  been  so  long  talking  about 
you,  that  I  haven't  the  time  to  do  justice  to 
writing  about  what's  been  doing  around  these 
parts.  But — it  will  keep ;  and  I  enjoy  keep- 
ing you  guessing  for  a  day  or  two  longer,  tho' 
I  scarce  can  wait  to  tell  you ! 

Good-night.  G.  G. 

G.  Gv  BAR  HARBOR,  R.  F.  AT  HOME. 

Summer. 

Thanks  for  your  telegram,  Guinea !  It  was 
even  sweller  than  mine.  But  you  are  'way 
ahead  of  the  times — that  is — you  are  in  a 
sense.  You  are  congratulating  me.  when  I'm 
not  yet  engaged!  Oh,  I  know — no  modest 
maiden  talks  about  her  trousseau  or  the  man 
she's  going  to  marry  until  the  Great  Question 
has  been  asked  and  answered.  And  I  don't 


208  Letters  from  G.  G. 

talk  about  it.  I  don't  breathe  it  to  any  one 
but  you — and  you  don't  count — you  dear  old 
thing ! 

Now  let  me  tell  you  all  about  it! 

I  wrote  you  on  the  very  day,  the  Eventful 
Day,  on  the  day  of  the  ball,  didn't  I  ?  It  was 
funny  how  after  so  many  moons  of  putting  off 
writing  you,  I  suddenly  felt  that  I  could  with 
perfect  ease  and  security  say  anything  to  you. 
It  was  as  if  coming  events  had  cast  their  light 
before  and  I  could  see ;  I  had  a  sort  of  sub- 
conscious sense  that  you  had  settled  your 
affairs  in  so  satisfactory  a  form  that  I  could 
be  quite  at  ease  with  you  again. 

Well  then — we  went  to  the  ball.  It  was  in 
the  house  of  friends  in  New  London,  a  re- 
markable house!  It  has  a  music  room  sixty 
by  eighty  feet  large  and  everything  in  propor- 
tion, including  the  heartiness  of  the  hosts.  We 
were  rather  late  arriving,  we  had  lingered  on 
and  on  over  dinner,  and  had  sat  out  in  the  rose 
garden,  rather  hating  the  thought  of  dancing, 


Letters  from  G.  G.  209 

and  the  idea  of  going  indoors  seemed  a  good 
one  to  put  off. 

As  we  stepped  into  the  room  where  they 
were  dancing,  my  eyes,  Guinea,  lit  on  him 
across  the  room.  Yes — on  him,  and  I  stopped 
short  as  if  I'd  had  a  galvanic  shock,  whatever 
that  is ;  I  reached  out  my  hand  to  steady  my- 
self, I  suddenly  felt  light-headed  and  wobbly 
in  the  knees,  and  I  said  in  a  sort  of  somnam- 
bulistic voice  :  "Who  is  that?  I  think  I  never 
saw  a  man  before !" 

Well — at  that  moment  the  Gods  appeared, 
and  all  the  Half -gods  go-ed.  And  from  that 
moment  there  has  existed  nothing  but  he. 

I  wish  I  could  tell  you  anything  that  would 
sound  a  bit  like  what  it  was  like,  but  words  are 
the  very  deuce  when  you  really  want  them  to 
mean  anything.  I  can  think  of  nothing  but 
the  meeting  of  the  Tragic  Comedians  to  match 
it.  Forgive  me,  but  I  can  call  up  no  more 
modest  analogy.  It  was  the  Miracle  of  Mir- 
acles, electric — dazzling — instantaneous. 

Oh,  Romney !  he  is  so  wonderful,  so  right ! 


2io  Letters  from  G.  G. 

And  the  marvel  of  finding  him !  I  had  always 
known  he  must  be  somewhere,  and  that  some 
time  I  must  find  him.  Yet  times  I  feared  I 
never  should;  times  I  used  to  say  to  myself: 
"Why  do  I  feel  so  sad  and  so  forlorn?  Be- 
cause the  one  I  love  is  not  yet  born?"  or  else 
I  feared  he  had  lived  a  thousand  years  ago. 
There  have  been  so  many,  so  many,  who  have 
passed  into  my  life  and  out  again,  and  I  have 
sometimes  wondered,  "Is  this  he?  or  if  it  is 
not — maybe  he'll  do,  faute  de  mieuxf  but  I 
couldn't,  couldn't  be  satisfied,  and  I  knew 
that  I  should  know  on  the  instant  when  he 
really  came,  and  that  he  must  know  also. 
And,  Romney — so  it  was — so  it  is !  Isn't  it 
wonderful — wonderful — wonderful ! 

Don't  think  me  gone  stark  staring  mad.  It 
only  seems  as  if  I  had  a  great  sunrise  going 
on  inside  of  me  all  the  time. 

The  strange  part  is  that  after  that  first  night 
and  after  one  marvelous  day  spent  on  the 
water — a  day  never  to  be  matched — what  do 
you  think!  I  got  so  scared,  I  had  such  a  plain 


Letters  from  G.  G.          211 

case  of  panic,  I  could  stand  no  more.  It  was 
all  so  overwhelming  and  so  swift.  What  did 
I  do?  Incontinentally  tied  I  I  made  them 
take  me  off  in  the  motor.  We'd  been  plan- 
ning a  trip  of  a  week  or  two. 

What  a  journey  it  has  been!  I  am  in  a 
trance. 

I  reckon  you'll  think  me  crazy,  but  it's  Gos- 
pel true  that  tho'  I  know — of  course — that 
this  fall — in  New  York  .  .  .  yet  really 
I  don't  care  if  I  never  see  him  again,  for  he  is 
mine,  whether  he  knows  it  or  not.  and  I  am  his, 
whether  he  wants  me  or  not,  and  oh — best  of 
all — He  is!  That  is  the  thing  that  really  mat- 
ters— HE  is !  and  I  have  seer,  him,  and  he  is  all 
that  I  could  have  pictured,  and  so  much  more 
which  I  never  should  have  had  the  imagina- 
tion to  imagine,  splendid  and  noble,  and  kind 
and  true  and  strong  and  sincere,  and  with  a 
charm — oh,  but  a  charm  of  speech  and  man- 
ner! 

Now  you  will  think:  "Of  course,  she   sees 


212  Letters  from  G.  G. 

through  rose-colored  goggles,  but  Love  was 
'ever  blind !" 

You  are  mistaken,  me  lad!  Love  is  not 
blind.  Love  is  the  most  sensitively  critical 
thing  in  the  world,  and  I  the  most  clear- 
sighted critic. 

You  ought  to  be  able  to  see  from  the  long 
fiction  we  have  kept  up  together  for  so  long 
just  how  it  is  with  me.  Pleiad  has  been  the 
treasure  of  my  life.  I  addressed  him  through 
you,  because  in  a  sense,  you  never  existed  for 
me  at  all !  Don't  misunderstand,  R.  F. — you, 
the  man  in  Paris,  existed  as  the  memory  of  an 
acquaintance,  and  as  a  handwriting  utterly 
impersonal,  and  because  of  that  I  could  invest 
you  with  all  the  qualities  I  required  in  Pleiad, 
since — not  being  there  to  gainsay  or  fall  short 
of  them,  you  could  not  entirely  "scatter  the 
vision  forever."  When  at  one  time  and  an- 
other you  did  fall  short — I  spared  not  to  scold 
you  roundly — did  I — you  poor  dear! 

I  have  loved — how  I  have  loved,  not  you, 
R.  F.,  but  him — Pleiad,  with  all  my  soul  and 


Letters  from  G.  G.  213 

being.  This  is  no  news  to  you — you  knew  it. 
The  fiction  we  began  in  laughter  has  led  me  to 
my  great  happiness  to-day.  At  the  crucial 
moment  Pleiad  saved  me,  and  for  that — all  my 
life  I  must  be  in  your  debt.  He  made  me 
pause  and  wait — the  Star  Lover  saved  me,  and 
now  the  Man  has  come. 

Isn't  it  beautiful  that  the  case  fits  the  other 
way  about,  too?  though  how  it  happens  to  is 
more  than  I  can  fathom.  For  there's  only  one 
of  him,  and  there  are  so  many  of  me  the 
world  over,  and  it  is  such  a  faded,  dull  com- 
monplace me ! 

Do  you  wonder  that  I've  gone  back  to  my 
old  tricks  of  not  sleeping  ?  Why  sleep  ?  How 
should  I  wish  to  sleep — with  such  wonders  to 
think  about?  I  am  so  full  of  joy  I  almost 
wish  I  might  die  to-night.  Now  I  know  you 
think  me  gone  dotty! 

I  have  always  wanted  to  find  my  own.  I 
have  not  wanted  to  wander  through  space  and 
eternity  a  misfit — and  now  that  I've  found  him 
and  he  has  found  me,  he  might  even  go  so  far 


214  Letters  from  G.  G. 

as  to  marry  some  one  else  if  he  chose,  and  it 
wouldn't  matter.  What  happened  within  the 
first  five  seconds  or  our  meeting  was  final — 
complete. 

Laugh  now — laugh  all  you  like!  But  you 
won't  laugh — you  are  too  happy  yourself  to 
mock  at  my  happiness,  you  are  too  divinely 
mad  yourself  to  jeer  at  my  madness. 

Dear  Boy — among  other  lovely  things,  is 
it  not  nice  that  our  each  having  found  our 
True  Love,  our  each  having  given  our  heart  to 
Another,  has  brought  us  only  the  closer  to- 
gether ? 

Good-night.  G.  G. 

G.  G.  AT  HOME,  R.  F.  AT  HOME. 

Summer. 

After  the  motor  trip  I  didn't  go  back  to 
New  London,  as  you  see  I  came  home.  I've 
been  here  a  little  over  a  month,  and  in  that 
time,  Guiuea,  what  had  to  be  had  to  be. 

He  couldn't  very  well  fly  about  the  coun- 
try in  hot  pursuit  of  our  automobile,  that 


Letters  from  G.  G.          215 

would  have  bordered  upon  the  absurd,  but 
when  he  heard  that  I  had  come  home,  he  came 
here.  He  could  only  stay  week  ends,  but  then 
he  went  away  and  came  again,  and  then  he 
came  again,  .  .  .  and  he  will  keep  on 
coming,  Guinea,  until  I  go  back  to  New  York 
— for  it  is  all  settled. 

Thanks  for  your  dear,  good  letter.  It  did 
me  good  to  hear  you  talk  in  that  hearty  major 
key — you  who  have  always  had  a  melancholy 
devil  lurking  in  the  background.  You  sound 
so  gorgeously,  healthily  happy  that  I  love  your 
girl  for  it,  and  am  her  friend  forever !  I  feel 
that  I  know  her  well  from  your  portrait  of 
her. 

You  want  to  hear  all  about  him  ?  How  can 
I  tell  you?  Anything  said  about  him  would 
make  him  sound  just  like  the  average  man, 
and  he  isn't!  He's  the  only  man  in  the  world. 

What  does  he  look  like?  He  is  dark,  of 
course.  Your  girl  is  dark,  they  had  to  be 
since  you  and  I  are  such  towheads.  He  is  all 
dark,  and  his  eyes  are  placid  as  a  cow's  at 


216  Letters  from  G.  G. 

times,  sometimes  they  are  penetrated  with  a 
smile  that  seems  to  come  bubbling  up  from 
fathomless  depths,  and  at  times  I  can  call  them 
nothing  short  of  turbulent,  fiery  brown  with 
purple  lightnings,  and  if  the  eyes  are  win- 
dows of  the  soul,  his  tell  the  whole  story.  He 
is  big,  big  as  you  are,  unless  he  is  bigger,  and 
he  makes  me  feel  like  a  canary  bird  perching 
on  his  big  fist.  He  is  the  sanest  person  living, 
and  what  is  sanity  but  the  combination  of  tre- 
mendous passions  under  superb  control?  He 
is  distinguished  as  a  European  crowned  head, 
or  would  be,  but  that  they  all  look  so  common 
beside  him.  He  gives  one  the  sense  of  enor- 
mous power  combined  with  boundless  gentle- 
ness and  kindliness  and  warmth  of  heart  and 
good  nature  and  humor. 

What's  his  business?  I'm  obliged  to  con- 
fess he  has  none!  But  that  doesn't  mean 
that  he's  an  Idle  Rich !  He's  the  busiest  man 
in  the  country  except  maybe  our  busy  Presi- 
dent. He  is  kept  somewhat  employed  look- 
ing after  the  things  he  owns,  but  his  interest 


Letters  from  G.  G.          217 

is  in  the  things  that  need  straightening  out. 
He  has  a  great  gift  for  straightening  the 
crooked — and  pulling  down  the  rotten — and 
raising  the  fallen.  I  suppose  he  might  be  said 
to  have  a  hand  in  politics,  and  he  will 
have  more  and  more.  He's  the  sort  of  man 
who  ought  to,  whose  great  interest  lies  not  in 
private  concerns  and  little  specialties,  but  in 
People  and  action  and  great  big  public  con- 
siderations. 

But  I  can't  tell  you  about  him.  You'll  have 
to  see  him  for  yourself.  One  can't  describe 
personality,  at  least  /  can't,  and  his  long, 
strong  suit  is  that  he's  the  most  lovable  thing 
ever  created,  and  the  most  human.  He's  a 
giant  and  he's  a  tiny  child ;  a  good  child,  and 
sometimes  he's  a  bad  child ;  a  king  who  knows 
equally  well  how  to  rule  and  how  to  serve.  He 
is  a  large,  a  generous,  person  in  every  sense. 
Generous  and  charitable  materially,  generous 
and  charitable  in  judgment. 

I  must  tell  you  something :  he  is  not  Pleiad ! 
Emphatically  he  is  not.  Pleiad  was  a  poet 


2i 8  Letters  from  G.  G. 

and  a  dreamer  and  an  artist,  a  star,  an  angel, 
a  saint;  Pleiad  was  a  phantom  knight.  A 
knight  in  armor  with  the  moonlight  shining 
on  it.  Pleiad  was  an  ideal — and  to  him  all 
praise  and  thanks ;  he  served  his  purpose  until 
— the  Man  came — and  the  man's  name  is  John ! 

G.  G.,  B'WAY,  R.  F.,  CALIFORNIA. 

Autumn. 

Like  Diogenes,  I  have  my  little  lantern — 
and  I'm  ransacking  New  York,  not  to  find  an 
honest  man — I've  found  him,  but  what  seems 
much  more  difficult,  to  spot  out  where  are  the 
Happy  People.  Where  do  they  hide  them- 
selves? Occasionally  I  see  a  woman  who 
looks  fairly  contented — comfortable  and  fat; 
and  sometimes  a  man  who  has  dined  looks 
enormously  entertained — but  where  are  the 
people  who  are  as  happy  as  I  am?  It  can't 
be  that  I'm  the  only  one  in  this  town? 

Where  are  those  whose  clothes  with  diffi- 
culty keep  them  from  exploding  from  that  in- 
ward ferment  of  delight?  Where  is  the  Boy 


Letters  from  G.  G.  219 

whose  Girl  said  "Yes"  last  night?  Where  is 
the  Girl  whose  Dad  finally  gave  his  consent 
this  morning?  Where  is  the  Man  whose  Son 
was  successfully  born  in  the  small  hours? 
Where  are  they  upon  whom  rests  the  Peace  of 
God  ?  Where  is  the  Woman  whose  Mother  is 
getting  well  ?  Where  are  those  who  after  the 
pinch  of  poverty  and  pain  have  sudden  re- 
lease? Where  are  they  who  have  done  good 
work,  and  given  good  measure,  and  made 
great  sacrifices,  and  been  good  and  faithful 
servants  ? 

I  want  to  see  in  the  face  and  eyes  of  my 
neighbor  some  reflection  of  the  light  within. 
I  can't  believe  he  is  as  dark  as  his  surface  in- 
dicates. Is  it  that  he  studiously  applies  him- 
self to  erasing  from  his  features  any  tell-tale 
trace  of  the  glow?  I  scan  face  after  face  in 
the  streets,  in  the  shops,  everywhere,  and  I 
cannot  find  the  Happy  Ones! 

And  I  so  wish  they  were  all  as  happy  as  I ! 

Don't  you  think  you  would  know  if  you  saw 
me?  Don't  you  think  if  you  saw  me  buzzing 


22O          Letters  from  G.  G. 

about  buying  all  my  pretty,  pretty,  pretty 
things,  or  if  you  saw  me  stitching  and  hem- 
ming on  them  that  you'd  say  to  yourself: 
"There  goes  the  happiest  woman  that  ever 
breathed  the  air  of  Heaven  !"  Don't  you  think 
if  you  saw  me  in  Church  trying  to  make  my- 
self not  too  grotesquely  unworthy  to  receive 
such  a  shower  of  good  things,  and  singing 
praises  out  of  a  humble  but  not  the  least  bit 
contrite  heart,  don't  you  think  you'd  catch  a 
wafture  of  my  consecrated  crowning  mood  ? 

Don't  think,  though,  Guinea,  that  I'm  all 
the  time  in  carolling  vein — that  that  is  all 
there  is  to  it.  I  have  my  awed  and  awful 
moments,  my  moments  of  feeling  myself  go 
pale.  .  .  .  Suppose  I  were  unable  to 
make  him  happy ! 

I  say  to  myself  sometimes  :  Maybe  this  is  all 
nothing  but  a  wonderful  dream.  Maybe  this 
is  what  every  woman  experiences,  and  after- 
wards— even  after  happiness  and  security 
that  match  mine — come  tragedies  and  dis- 
illusion and  soul-sickening  despair ! 


Letters  from  G.  G.          221 

Well,  come  what  come  may,  I  am  safe !  At 
this  crisis  as  in  all  others,  I  lie  in  the  hollow  of 
the  Great  Hand  that  will  not  let  me  fall,  or 
entirely  crush  me,  and  will  not  turn  my  cup 
to  one  of  unmixed  gall.  Whatever  comes 
hereafter,  I  have  stood  on  the  Summit  of  the 
Mountain,  and  I  have  walked  through  the 
Gates  of  Sunrise. 

Were  I  to-day  to  be  assured  that  all  that  lies 
hidden  in  to-morrow  would  be  storm  and  ship- 
wreck, I  would  go  on,  I  could  not  go  back,  for 
now  I  realize  that  it  is  not  for  the  sake  of  con- 
tinuing my  own  great  joy  that  I  am  following 
in  the  path  that  looks  all  lined  with  rose  petals. 
I  must  go  on  because  I  must,  no  matter  what 
the  path  leads  to. 

I  know  that  all  cannot  forever  be  at  this 
white  heat  of  ecstasy  for  him  and  for  me — I 
know  ...  I  know  that  gray  days,  black 
days,  stormy  days,  must  come,  and  it  is  more 
for  their  sake  than  for  the  golden  ones  that  I 
want  to  be  with  him.  I  want  to  be  with  him 
in  his  successes,  in  his  triumphs,  in  his  great 


222  Letters  from  G.  G. 

hours,  but  how  much  more  I  must  be  with  him 
in  the  inevitable  hours  of  despondency  and 
disgust,  in  the  possible  hours  of  failure.  I 
want  to  be  with  him  as  he  grows  old,  to  grow 
old  along  with  him.  How  could  I  bear  an- 
other to  be  there  in  my  place  if  he  were  ill 
and  sad  ?  His  mother  is  the  only  one  I  should 
not  be  jealous  of — and  she  is  no  longer  here — 
and  I  want  to  be  mother  and  sister  and  friend, 
as  well  as  his  love  and  his  wife. 

Good-by,  dear  R.  F. ;  you  will  be  married 
only  a  few  days  after  this  reaches  you.  You 
in  the  season  of  Falling  Leaves,  and  I  at 
Blossoming  Lilac  Time.  Your  church  is  to  be 
gorgeous  with  crimson  and  golden  autumn 
boughs  ?  Mine  will  be  sweet  with  purple  and 
white  perfume. 

You  are  coming  to  New  York  on  your 
honeymoon  ?  Isn't  it  delightful !  (We  are 
going  to  Italy,  of  course — to  Venice.)  When 
you  come  I  shall  meet  your  Mary,  I  want  so 
to  see  her  and  to  love  her,  and  you  must  know 


Letters  from  G.  G.  223 

and  like  my  man!  You  can't  help  it,  you 
know! 

Each  other  we  shall  dodge  and  hide  from. 
We'll  keep  up  the  game  to  the  end — won't  we  ? 
though  maybe  we'll  go  so  far  as  to  have  chats 
over  the  telephone? 

Good-by — good-by — good-by. 

God  have  you  in  His  care.     He  has ! 

God  keep  you.     He  will ! 

God  love  you.     He  does ! 


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